sugar
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈʃʊɡə(ɹ)/
enpr: sho͝ogʹər
ipa: /ˈʃʊɡɚ/
rhymes: -ʊɡə(ɹ)
Forms: form: sugars
form: sugaring
form: sugared
form: sugared
form: shugar
Etymology: Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *ḱorkeh₂
Proto-Indo-Iranian *ćárkaraH
Proto-Indo-Aryan *śárkaraH
Sanskrit शर्करा (śárkarā)
Gandhari 𐨭𐨐𐨪 (śakara)bor.
Middle Persian 𐭱𐭪𐭥 (šakar)bor.
Arabic سُكَّر (sukkar)bor.
Old Italian zuccherobor.
Old French çucrebor.
Middle English sugre
English sugar
Inherited from Middle English sugre, borrowed from Old French çucre, borrowed from Old Italian zucchero, borrowed from Arabic سُكَّر (sukkar), borrowed from Middle Persian 𐭱𐭪𐭥 (šakar), borrowed from Gandhari 𐨭𐨐𐨪 (śakara), from Sanskrit शर्करा (śárkarā), from Proto-Indo-Aryan *śárkaraH, from Proto-Indo-Iranian *ćárkaraH, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱorkeh₂ (“gravel”).
 Akin to Ancient Greek κρόκη (krókē, “pebble”), whence the words crocodile and krokodil are derived. Doublet of jaggery, sucro-, crocodile, and krokodil.
The verb is from Middle English sugren, from the noun.
Senses: examples: text: John heavily sugars his coffee.
text: See, I've put sugar-plums on his coat for fancy buttons, sugared his shirt-frill, and put on a red almond to his hat-front.
ref: 1876, Emilie Foster, Teddy and His Friends:
text: "There spoke the real British scorn," she said, sugaring her tea, "the fine British contempt for every other nation."
ref: 1905, “The Duke of Castle Blanco”, in The Quiver, page 1007:
text: Moreover, the residents recalled that the aristocrat's pet canary had become like a personal retainer, waking his master in the morning and sugaring his drink.
ref: 2002, Frank Tallis, Hidden Minds: A History of the Unconscious:
glosses: To add sugar to; to sweeten with sugar.
examples: text: She has a gift for sugaring what would otherwise be harsh words.
text: He also published the "Weekly Recorder," an indefinite title, which was his way of sugaring what soon became in the region where it was published, Mt. Pleasant, Ohio, a very bitter pill.
ref: 1890, Anson De Puy Van Buren, Michigan in her pioneer politics:
text: She shook her head sadly at him. "No, it won't do, Arthur. I'm not in a mood to be sugared."
ref: 1917, Mrs. Florence Guertin Tuttle, Give My Love to Maria:
text: But step by step, aided by Claude Morin's arguments, Lévesque had led the party through the process of sugaring what he saw as the pill of independence.
ref: 2001, Graham Fraser, René Lévesque and the Parti Québécois in Power:
glosses: To make (something unpleasant) seem less so.
examples: text: To sugar off, I prefer using a kettle that will hold about half a. barrel; and boil over a brisk, steady fire, till on dropping some of the syrup into cold water it will break like glass, then dip it into wooden trays to cool, and when it is grained stir it briskly.
ref: 1851, J. D. H., “On Making Maple Syrup”, in The Ohio Cultivator, volume 7, page 91:
text: A long time ago my grandmother and I used to boil maple sap. When she sugared off, I stood there.
ref: 1994, “Sugaring Off”, in Nindinawemaagan Giwitaa'ayeyii, volume 6, page 55:
text: During the spring in Quebec and Ontario, maple syrup is harvested, or "sugared off," a process which is usually celebrated as a social event.
ref: 2004, Lois Sakany, Canada: A Primary Source Cultural Guide:
glosses: In making maple sugar, to complete the process of boiling down the syrup till it is thick enough to crystallize; to approach or reach the state of granulation; with the preposition off.
examples: text: Some entomologists assert that it is useless to sugar when ivy is in bloom.
ref: 1876, W. Sandison, “Note on sugaring”, in The Entomologist's Monthly Magazine, volume 12, page 207:
text: The latter are best taken by "sugaring" — painting patches of mixed beer and sugar on a series of tree trunks, and making several rounds at twilight with a lantern and a cyanide bottle.
ref: 1921, Arthur Herbert Savory, Grain and Chaff from an English Manor:
text: Sugaring attracts some species of moth that do not readily come to light.
ref: 2006, William J. Sutherland, Ecological Census Techniques: A Handbook:
topics: biology
entomology
natural-sciences
glosses: To apply sugar to trees or plants in order to catch moths.
examples: text: You can sugar the syntax of constants thus: […]
ref: 2002, Jonathan Bromley, “Fixed point arithmetic”, in comp.arch.fpga (Usenet):
text: Sure, you could sugar the latter to look like the former (effectively implementing closures as objects), but it seems simpler to just allow the former.
ref: 2006, Neil Madden, “Re: Closures”, in comp.lang.tcl (Usenet):
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
programming
sciences
glosses: To rewrite (source code) using syntactic sugar.
glosses: To compliment (a person).
glosses: To remove hair using a paste of sugar, water, and lemon juice.
Synonyms: sense: add sugar to
word: sweeten
sense: make less unpleasant
word: sweeten
sense: make less unpleasant
word: sugar-coat
Derived terms: oversugar
sugared
sugarer
sugaring
sugar off
sugar the pill