sweetener
(ˈswiːt(ə)nə(r))
[f. as prec. + -er1.]
1. a. That which makes something sweet to the taste or other sense; something that imparts a sweet flavour.
| 1719 Quincy Compl. Disp. 96/1 All those which usually pass for Sweetners. 1884 S. Dowell Taxation v. ii. I. 132 Sugar..began to displace honey as a sweetener for food. |
b. An alkali or similar substance used to neutralize acidity; something which renders soil rich and mellow.
| 1681 tr. Belon's Myst. Physick Introd. 34 Alcalies and other Sweetners should be employed. a 1699 Temple Misc. iii. Health & Long Life Wks. 1720 I. 286 Powder of Crabs-Eyes and Claws, and burnt Egg-Shells are often prescribed as Sweetners of any sharp Humours. 1712 Steele Spect. No. 547 ¶10, I..having a Constitution which naturally abounds with Acids..have found it a most excellent Sweetner of the Blood. 1765 Museum Rust. IV. xl. 178 During that year, one may sow either oats, corn, peas or beans, or any sweetener. 1794 Vancouver Agric. Cambridge 201 The plough is..used with great propriety, as a sweetener of the soil. |
c. Painting. A brush used for ‘sweetening’: see sweeten 8 b.
| 1859 Gullick & Timbs Painting 198 Most artists also use a brush made of badger's hair. It bears the significant names of ‘softener’ and ‘sweetener’, and is used to blend the colours and remove ‘edginess’, by being swept to and fro over them while freshly laid. |
2. a. A person or (more usually) a thing that renders something pleasant or agreeable (or mitigates its unpleasantness).
| a 1649 Drummond of Hawthornden Madrigals, A Kiss, This Sweetner of Annoyes, This Nectare of the Gods. 1670 Brooks Wks. (1867) VI. 368 The communion with God, that is the life of your graces, the sweetener of all ordinances. 1710 Norris Chr. Prud. viii. 350 Wisdom..the great Up⁓holder and Sweetner of all Society. 1742 Blair Grave 89 Friendship!.. Sweetner of Life! and Solder of Society! 1865 Mrs. Gaskell Wives & Dau. l, Molly stood by,..and only kept where she was by the hope of coming in as sweetener or peacemaker. 1871 Smiles Charac. ix. (1876) 260 Grace is a sweetener and embellisher of life. |
† b. One who softens, palliates, or extenuates; a flatterer, cajoler. Obs.
| 1724 Swift Drapier's Lett. vii. Wks. 1755 V. ii. 150 Those softners, sweetners, compounders, and expedient-mongers. 1728 Capt. G. Carleton's Mem. 202 When any Officers had asserted the Falsity of those Inventions (as they all did, except a military Sweetner or two). 1729 Swift Poems, Libel on Delany 154 You, who till your fortune's made Must be a sweetener by your trade, Should swear he never meant us ill. |
c. Something that produces (or restores) pleasant feeling; something pleasing, gratifying, or comforting; also, a means of persuasion, an inducement (cf. next sense); a bribe; a concession or appeasement (esp. in politics, business, etc.). Cf. douceur 3.
| 1741 Middleton Cicero (1742) II. viii. 235 A sweetner for my Cato. 1754 E. Farneworth tr. Life Sextus V, iv. (1766) 190 This was what the gamesters call a Sweetner, to draw them on, and made them labour more earnestly. 1782 S. Crisp Let. to Mme. D'Arblay 5 Apr., And now, Fanny, after this severe lecturing, I shall give you a sweetener to make it up with you. 1829 P. Egan Boxiana 2nd Ser. II. 415 As a reward, or sweetener for his numerous defeats,..the above unexpected victory has put Sampson once more into good humour with himself. 1847 A. Harris Settlers & Convicts vi. 89 The handsome ‘sweeteners’ (bribes) which old D―'s profits enabled him to give the constables. 1903 G. H. Lorimer Lett. Self-made Merch. xiii. 186, I met him coming in from his route looking glum; so I handed him fifty dollars as a little sweetener. 1955 Times 24 May 16/2, I suggest that what you got from Carroll Levis was a sweetener or a bribe. 1959 Economist 28 Mar. 1176/1 The main attraction of the Kennedy Bill is its ‘sweeteners’ in the form of amendments, made to the order of the labour leaders, to the basic Taft-Hartley Act regulating trade union activities. 1960 Wall St. Jrnl. 26 Sept. 11 The State Department responded..by permitting the imports but removing the sweetener—the premium that other sugar suppliers enjoy in their sales to the U.S. 1975 Times 10 Apr. 8/2 Mr Nixon used the threat of renewed bombing as a sweetener to get the reluctant President Thieu to sign the agreements. 1979 G. Hammond Dead Game x. 138 Everybody gives ‘sweeteners’ of some kind or another, even if it's only a bottle at Christmas. |
3. slang. a. A decoy, cheat, sharper. ? Obs.
| a 1700 B. E. Dict. Cant. Crew, Cog,..the Money..the Sweetners drop to draw in the Bubbles. Ibid., Sweetners, Guinea-Droppers, Cheats, Sharpers. 1707 Luttrell Brief Rel. (1857) VI. 223 Being one of the gang, and a sweetner, he goeing to the innocent persons to perswade them to make up the same by giving money. 1714 Lond. Gaz. No. 5272/9 Whereas divers Persons, commonly called Sweetners, have cheated many People of considerable Sums of Mony, by plausible Pretences. |
b. One who bids at an auction merely in order to raise the price.
| 1823 in Spirit of Public Jrnls. (1825) 508 Here the music of bidding grows loud and more loud—Here the sweetener is conning his hints for the day. 1865 Slang Dict. 1904 Daily Chron. 23 Sept. 6/4 ‘Safe bidding’ or ‘sweetening’ at an auction sale was a fraud on the public. Most men bidding at an auction trusted the other bidders. A ‘sweetener’ was a man who was not ‘playing the game’. |