sweetish, a.
(ˈswiːtɪʃ)
[f. sweet a. + -ish1.]
Somewhat or slightly sweet.
| 1580 Hollyband Treas. Fr. Tong, Douceastre, sweetish. 1601 Holland Pliny xiv. vi. I. 414 Sweetish they be, and yet otherwhiles they have an unripe and harsh rellish of the wood. 1681 Grew Musæum iv. i. 354 It becomes sweetish, and makes no Effervescence upon the injection of the Chalk. 1778 Pryce Min. Cornub. 56 If the acid becomes a little sweetish, Lead is certainly mixed with the Mercury. 1803 Southey in Ann. Rev. I. 69 A lake of sweetish water, much frequented by water fowl. 1871 G. H. Napheys Prev. & Cure Dis. iii. ii. 626 When the odor [of the breath] is sickly sweetish, we may conclude the lungs are out of order. 1880 ‘Vernon Lee’ Italy iii. 151 A grandiloquent poem, stately and sweetish, full of gods, goddesses, and little chubby Cupids. |
| advb. 1864 Garrod Mat. Med. (ed. 2) 256 Of a sweetish-bitter taste. 1895 Kipling 2nd Jungle Bk. 186 A sweetish-sourish smell. |
Hence
ˈsweetishness.
| 1752 Berkeley Th. Tar-water Wks. 1784 II. 645 A fade sweetishness, offensive to the palate. 1831 J. Wilson in Blackw. Mag. XXIX. 8 A peculiar sort o' wersh fuzionless nonsense that's gotten a sweaty sweetishness aboot it. |