sugar-candy
(ˌʃʊgəˈkændɪ)
[ad. F. sucre candi (in which candi was at an early date apprehended as a pa. pple.; cf. 15th c. chucre candit, and It. zucchero candito), corresp. to Pr. sucre cande, Sp. azucar candi, Pg. assucar candi, MLG. suckercandi (also -ît), early mod.Du. suycker candye (Du. kandij-suiker), G. zuckerkand (16th c.), med.L. succar-candi; repr. Arab. sukkar sugar + qandī of sugar, f. qand sugar, a. Pers. kand = Skr. khaṇḍa sugar in pieces (cf. khaṇḍa śarkarā candied sugar), orig. piece, fragment, f. root khaṇḍ to break.]
1. Sugar clarified and crystallized by slow evaporation.
brown (or † red) sugar-candy: that obtained at the first crystallization. white sugar-candy: that obtained by reboiling the former and allowing it to crystallize.
| [1390 Earl Derby's Exped. (Camden) 19 Pro vj lb. sucri candy.] 1392 Ibid. 219 Pro diversis speciebus..emptis..viz. croco,..gariofilis, sugre candy, sugre caffetin. c 1420 Liber Cocorum (1862) 7 With sugur candy, thou may hit dowce. c 1460 J. Russell Bk. Nurture 757 Whot appuls & peres with sugre Candy. [1510 tr. Rentale Dunkeld. (S.H.S.) 213 Zucro candey.] 1584 Cogan Haven Health cxxix. (1636) 128 White sugar is not so good for flegme, as that which is called Sugar Candie. 1596 Shakes. 1 Hen. IV, iii. iii. 180 One poore peny-worth of Sugar-candie to make thee long-winded. 1610 Shuttleworths' Acc. (Chetham Soc.) 191 Halfe a pound of brown suger candie, xij{supd}. 1611 Ibid. 196 White suger candie. 1620 Venner Via Recta vi. 102 Red Sugar-Candy, which is only good in glysters. 1664 Power Exp. Philos. i. 27 Diaphanous like Sugar-Candy. 1755 Smollett Quix. (1803) IV. 8, I thought..his voice as sweet as sugar-candy. 1836–41 Brande Chem. (ed. 5) 115 Thus we see sugar-candy crystallized upon strings, and verdigris upon sticks. 1864 Garrod Mat. Med. (ed. 2) 316 Cane sugar..crystallized from a strong solution with the addition of spirit..forms oblique four-sided prisms, sugar candy. |
2. fig. Something sweet, pleasant, or delicious.
| 1591 Greene Farew. Follie Wks. (Grosart) IX. 294 Sugar candie she is, as I gesse, fro the waist to the kneestead. 1591 Harington Orl. Fur. Pref. ¶8 In verse is both goodnesse and sweetnesse, Rubarb and Sugercandie, the pleasaunt and the profitable. 1593 G. Harvey Pierce's Super. Wks. (Grosart) II. 254 O the sugarcandy of the delicate bag pipe there. 1817 Byron Beppo lxxx, Oh, for old Saturn's reign of sugar-candy! 1889 Gretton Memory's Harkback 94 Lord John Russell, to whom a rap at the University was always sugar-candy. |
b. attrib. or as adj. Sugared, honeyed, deliciously sweet.
| 1575 G. Harvey Letter-bk. (Camden) 91 The goodliest suugercandye style That ever cam neere me a mile. 1602 2nd Pt. Return fr. Parnass. iii. iv. 1377 Give him some sugar candy tearms. 1602 Middleton Blurt, Master-Constable v. ii, No, no, my sugar-candy mistress, your goodman is not here. 1903 Ld. R. Gower Rec. & Rem. 149 The party in that sugar-candy, cake-like house of wits was a small one. 1909 Daily Chron. 20 Sept. 4/6 Sugar-candy hymns. |
3. attrib., as sugar-candy powder, sugar-candy stick; also applied locally to crystallized geological formations (see quots. 1778, 1876).
| 1683 Tryon Way to Health xv. (1697) 368 Take..White-Sugar candy-powder one Dram and half. 1706 E. Ward Wooden World Diss. (1708) 77 A mere Sugar-candy Stick, in Comparison to his Cat of Nine-Tails. 1778 W. Pryce Min. Cornub. 92 A white candied, or pellucid Crystal, commonly termed a White Sugar Candy (Spar) Crystal. 1876 Woodward Geol. Eng. & Wales 204 The beds at Portland and Tisbury contain beautiful yellow crystals of sulphate of barytes (sugar candy stone). |
Hence sugar-ˈcandyish a., resembling sugar-candy.
| 1874 Disraeli Let. Aug. in Lett. to Lady Bradford (1929) I. vii. 135 Her manners not only sugary but sugar-candyish. 1927 J. Masefield Midnight Folk 172 A bowl of raspberries and cream with blobs of sugar-candyish brown sugar. |