sweetmeat, n. Now chiefly arch.
(ˈswiːtmiːt)
[See sweet a. and meat n. Cf. OE. swétmettas, swótmettas delicacies.]
1. collect. pl. (and † sing.) † Sweet food, as sugared cakes or pastry, confectionary (obs.); preserved or candied fruits, sugared nuts, etc.; also, globules, lozenges, ‘drops,’ or ‘sticks’ made of sugar with fruit or other flavouring or filling; sing. one of these.
| c 1480 Henryson Test. Cress. 420 The sweit Meitis, seruit in plaittis clene, With Saipheron sals of ane gud sessoun. ? a 1500 Chester Pl. (Shaks. Soc.) I. 143, I knowe that in thy childehoode Thou wylte for sweete meate loke. 1584 Lyly Sappho v. ii. 9 Giue him some sweete meates. 1592 Shakes. Rom. & Jul. i. iv. 76 Their breath with Sweet meats tainted are. 1626 Bacon Sylva §756 Teeth are much hurt by Sweet⁓meats. 1640 A. Rigby in Rushw. Hist. Coll. (1721) IV. 129 Or, like little Children, when we have been whipt and beaten, be pleased again with Sweetmeats. 1683 Tryon Way to Health 489 Nor [is it] lawful for any of us to eat Sweet-Meats or delicious Tarts, after we have eaten sufficiently of other simple & natural Food. a 1700 Evelyn Diary 10 Sept. 1677, To the Towne-house, where they presented us a collation of dried sweet meates and wine. 1750 Johnson Rambler No. 51 ¶6 She should be ashamed to set before company..sweetmeats of so dark a colour as she had often seen at Mistress Sprightly's. 1812 Shelley Devil's Walk xiv. Tired, [he] gives his sweetmeat, and again Cries for it, like a humoured boy. 1825 J. Neal Bro. Jonathan I. 76 Here were ‘sweetmeats’, i.e. preserved plums. 1858 Simmonds Dict. Trade, Sweetmeats, a general name for succades; fruits preserved in sugar, and confectionery articles made of sugar. 1880 ‘Ouida’ Moths i, You eat heaps of sweetmeats. You take too much tea, too much ice, too much soup, too much wine! |
| fig. 1690 C. Nesse Hist. & Myst. O. & N. Test. I. 49 This is Satan's sweet-meat to make Sinners like filthy dogs. 1854 Thackeray Newcomes I. 168 Gandish was always handing him sweetmeats of compliments. |
2. A varnish, consisting principally of linseed oil, used in the preparation of patent leather.
| 1875 Knight Dict. Mech. s.v. Patent Leather. |
3. attrib. and
Comb., as
sweetmeat glass,
sweetmeat pan,
sweetmeat pot,
sweetmeat shop,
sweetmeat spoon;
sweetmeat-seller.
| 1669 R. Montagu in Buccleuch MSS. (Hist. MSS. Comm.) I. 448 One sweetmeat pan, with a skimmer. 1705 Lond. Gaz. No. 4104/4, 2 Sweet-meat Spoons forked. 1769 Mrs. Raffald Eng. Housekpr. (1778) 225 Put it into flat sweet⁓meat pots, and tie it down with brandy paper. 1857 Dickens & Collins in Househ. Words 10 Oct. 338/1, I see a sweetmeat shop. 1895 Kipling 2nd Jungle Bk. 92 It was the wife of the sweetmeat-seller. 1897 A. Hartshorne Old English Glasses xviii. 299 The bowls of the cut sweetmeat glasses have the edges engrailed, vandycked, or faceted. 1971 Country Life 9 Sept. 639/2 Exquisite sweetmeat glasses with elaborately cut bowls and sturdy facet-cut stems were made between 1740 and the 1780s. |
Hence
sweetmeat v. trans.(
nonce-wd.), to furnish with sweetmeats.
| 1764 H. Walpole Let. to Earl Hertford 24 Feb., The fairies had so improved upon it, had so be-garlanded, so sweetmeated, and so desserted it [sc. a supper-room], that it looked like a vision. |