saccharine, a. and n.
(ˈsækəraɪn, -ɪn)
[Formed as prec. + -ine. Cf. F. saccharin.]
A. adj.
1. a. Of, pertaining to or of the nature of sugar; characteristic of sugar; sugary.
| 1674 Blount Glossogr. (ed. 4), Saccharine, belonging to Sugar, sweet like Sugar. 1685 Boyle Effects of Mot. iv. 31 The lump [of sugar] consisted of very numerous saccharine corpuscles. 1731 Arbuthnot Aliments iii. (1735) 53 Manna, which is an essential saccharine Salt, sweating from the Leaves of most Plants. 1757 A. Cooper Distiller i. i. (1760) 6 The..Saccharine Sweetness of the Malt. 1841–4 Emerson Ess., Circles Wks. (Bohn) I. 132, I am gladdened by seeing the predominance of the saccharine principle throughout vegetable nature. 1879 Geo. Eliot Theo. Such xiii, Bovis had never said inwardly that he would take a large allowance of sugar, and..he was naturally disgusted at the saccharine excesses of Avis. 1880 Baring-Gould Mehalah viii, She precipitated herself against a treacle barrel and upset it. A gush of black saccharine matter spread over the floor. |
b. saccharine fermentation = saccharification.
| 1801 W. Nicholson tr. Fourcroy's Syn. Tables Chem. xi, The saccharine fermentation. I first described under this name the spontaneous formation of sugar in vegetable matters left to themselves. 1839 Ure Dict. Arts 456 The saccharine fermentation, in which starch and gum are changed into sugar. |
2. Composed chiefly of sugar; of a plant, containing a large proportion of sugar; also, of urine, containing sugar in excess of what is normal.
saccharine diabetes, diabetes characterized by excess of saccharine matter in the urine.
| 1710 T. Fuller Pharm. Extemp. 109 A Saccharine Draught. a 1793 G. White Selborne, Observ. Veget. (1875) 359 All the maples have saccharine juices. 1845 Budd Dis. Liver 257 Albuminous urine and saccharine urine. 1874 Garrod & Baxter Mat. Med. (1880) 27 This salt has considerable power in checking the formation of sugar in saccharine diabetes. 1889 Barnard Noted Breweries I. 16 In the mashing process the starch of the malt is converted into a saccharine liquid, called wort. |
† 3. Chem. saccharine acid: oxalic acid. Obs.
| 1784 Cullen tr. Bergman's Phys. & Chem. Ess. I. 311 The residuum consisted of crystallized saccharine acid. 1802 T. Thomson Chem. II. 103 At first, however, it was called the acid of sugar, or the saccharine acid. |
4. Resembling sugar. a. Geol. Of rocks: Granular in texture = saccharoid a.
| 1833 [see saccharoid]. 1854 Hooker Himal. Jrnls. I. xvii. 406 Beds of saccharine quartz. 1858 Geikie Hist. Boulder xii. 242 Where they pass through limestone, they sometimes convert it into a white saccharine marble. |
b. Bot. Covered with shining grains like those of sugar (Cent. Dict. 1891).
5. fig. Chiefly in playful or sarcastic use: Sweet.
| 1841–4 Emerson Ess., Prudence Wks. (Bohn) I. 95 The abundant flow of this saccharine element of pleasure in every suburb. 1858 O. W. Holmes Aut. Breakf-t. (1865) 31 You will be saccharine enough in a few years. 1863 W. P. Lennox Biog. Remin. I. 179 A saccharine smile beamed upon the royal countenances. 1872 M. Collins Two Plunges I. v. 98 Those sweet, soft, saccharine sylphs. 1890 Spectator 1 Feb. 169/2 Too saccharine, is our short judgment on these poems. 1933 Punch 16 Aug. 178/1 Here is actually a Viennese film based not on copious draughts of The Blue Danube (with sugar), but on the crisper life which must presumably exist in that city, even in defiance of the saccharine mirage which appears to be the fondest of Hollywood's illusions. 1934 C. Lambert Music Ho! ii. 106 Such a saccharine melody as ‘None but the Weary Heart’. 1951 Essays in Crit. I. iii. 289 The saccharine honeymoon by the seaside. 1955 W. Gaddis Recognitions ii. ii. 370 A saccharine line drawing of a woman. 1970 K. Millett Sexual Politics ii. iii. 92 It was enough for him to rely on sentiment, a vague nostalgia about the heroic middle ages, and saccharine assertions about The Home. 1976 Amer. N. & Q. XIV. 147/2 The parable is saccharine and simplistic. Its sentimental treatment..asks for the cheap pity of melodrama and offers too easy a solution. |
B. n. Saccharine matter, sugar.
See also saccharin 2.
| 1841 Catlin N. Amer. Ind. (1844) II. lviii. 226 They live..without saccharine and without salt. 1856 Olmsted Slave States 670 Chemical analysis proves that a large amount of saccharine is still wasted. |
Hence ˈsaccharineish a., somewhat saccharine. sacchaˈrinity, sweetness.
| 1857 Tait's Mag. XXIV. 6/2 Swedish turnips..being of a saccharineish and sugarish taste. 1868 Helps Realmah xii. (1876) 313 The polite stranger assiduously presents the fallacious palliative of the consequential saccharinity. 1888 Nature XXXVIII. 573/1 A streaky distribution of brine and water or of syrup and water, in which portions of greatest and least salinity or saccharinity are within half a millimetre of one another. 1932 B. De Voto Mark Twain's Amer. viii. 191 Similar items in saccharinity..had created a brummagem reputation. 1971 A. Burgess MF i. 15 Loewe suddenly smiled with horrible saccharinity. 1977 Times Lit. Suppl. 18 Feb. 176/2 Juxtapositions of venom and saccharinity, iciness and boredom. |