chocolate

chocolate
  (ˈtʃɒkələt)
  Also 7 chocolata, -latte, -letta, -lat, chocaletto, -latte, chockelet, jocolatte, jacolatt, 8 jocalat.
  [a. F. chocolat, Sp. chocolate, ad. Mexican chocolatl ‘an article of food made of equal parts of the seeds of cacao and those of the tree called pochotl’ [Bombax ceiba] Siméon Dict. de langue Nahuatl. Chocolatl has no connexion whatever with the Mexican word cacauatl ‘cacao’, or its modern corruption cocoa; but is, so far as is known, a radical word of the language. It is possible, however, that Europeans confounded chocolatl with cacaua-atl, which was really a drink made from cacao.]
  1. A beverage made from the seeds of the cacao-tree; now, as distinguished from cocoa, that made by dissolving chocolate cake (see next) in boiling water or milk.

1604 E. G[rimston] D'Acosta's Hist. Indies iv. xxii. 271 The chiefe vse of this Cacao is in a drinke which they call Chocolate. 1662 H. Stubbes (title), The Indian Nectar, a Treatise on Chocolata. 1664 Pepys Diary 24 Nov., To a Coffee-house, to drink jocolatte, very good. 1682 Evelyn Diary 24 Jan., They also drank of a sorbet and jacolatt. 1684 Frost of 1683–4 (1844) 28 Wine, beer, ale, brandy, chockelet. 1705 Hickeringill Priest-cr. ii. vi. 62 Bless the Mahometan Coffee, and the Popish Spanish Chocolate. 1771 Smollett Humph. Cl. Let. 20 Apr., He asked if she would take a dish of chocolate. 1843 Prescott Mexico i. v. (1864) 43 The chocolate—from the Mexican chocolatl,—now so common a beverage throughout Europe.

  2. A paste or cake composed of the seeds of the cacao-fruit roasted and ground, sweetened and flavoured with vanilla and other substances. This is used to make the beverage (sense 1), and also eaten in various comfits. Esp. a sweetmeat in the form of bars, cakes, or drops, often with a qualifying word (see quot. 1925). Also with a and pl., a sweetmeat made entirely of or coated with chocolate. See also milk-chocolate.

1659 Lovell Compl. Herball 70 Cacao..the confection thereof, Chocolate. 1662 H. Stubbe Ind. Nectar Pref. 11 The best Chocolata, call'd Chocolata-Royal, will cost six shillings six pence each pound. 1682 Lond. Gaz. No. 1750/4 Chocolatte is sold, from 2s. 6d. to 5s. per Pound. 1710 Swift Lett. (1767) III. 27 The chocolate is a present, madam, for Stella. 1855 J. F. W. Johnston Chem. Comm. Life I. 224 The chocolate is made up into sweet cakes. 1861 Mrs. Beeton Bk. Househ. Managem. 804 Box of chocolate. This is served in an ornamental box... May be purchased at any time. 1874 L. Troubridge Life amongst Troubridges (1966) 78, I do adore Menier and Nougat chocolate... It is the only thing, except other sorts of choc. and ices, that I really enjoy eating. 1887 Army & Navy Co-op. Soc. Price List 38 Chocolates in Boxes..per box 1/9. 1925 B. Beetham in E. F. Norton Fight for Everest: 1924 368 Chocolate..plain, nut, milk, nut-milk, Bitro, vanilla, coffee, etc. 1959 [see bar n.1 3 a]. 1966 Listener 10 Feb. 217/1 Television programmes that are made up like boxes of assorted chocolates leave one with a confused taste in the mouth.

  3. † Erroneously applied to the cacao-tree, its fruit or seed. Obs.

1755 Johnson, Chocolate, the nut of the Cacao-tree [so in mod. Dicts.]. 1794 Martyn Rousseau's Bot. 370 There are four orders..Chocolate [Theobroma Cacao] is in the first.

  4. a. Chocolate colour.

1776 Withering Bot. Arrangem. (1796) IV. 167 Pileus varying from deep chocolate to chesnut. 1883 Scarth Rom. Brit. xviii. 177 Stones of a variety of shades, as cream colour, grey, yellow, and chocolate.

  b. as adj. Chocolate-coloured; dark brown; in U.S. spec. of certain soils.

1771 Goldsm. Haunch of Venison 95 ‘The tripe’, quoth the Jew, with his chocolate cheek. 1776 Withering Bot. Arrangem. (1796) IV. 202 Pileus with black, brown, and chocolate stripes. 1821 T. Nuttall Jrnl. Trav. Arkansa vi. 99 The chocolate or reddish-brown clay of the salt formation. 1858 Texas Almanac 56 The soil is chocolate loam. 1869 Daily News 24 Apr., A Cariboo young lady of chocolate complexion. 1869 Overland Monthly III. 130 Texas is notable for the number of its soils... There is the ‘chocolate’ prairie and the ‘mulatto’ and the ‘mezquite’ [etc.].

  5. a. attrib. and Comb., as chocolate bar, chocolate-brown, chocolate-cake, chocolate-colour, chocolate-crimson, chocolate-cup, chocolate-maker, chocolate-pot, chocolate-puff, chocolate-red, chocolate-seller; chocolate-coloured, chocolate-confectioning adjs.; chocolate biscuit, a biscuit coated with chocolate; chocolate-box, a decorated cardboard box filled with chocolates; also fig., and attrib. or quasi-adj. = chocolate-boxy adj.; so chocolate-box(e)y a., like the (usu. stereotyped romantic) pictures on chocolate-boxes; chocolate-cake, (a) a chocolate-flavoured cake; (b) raw chocolate in the form of a ‘cake’; chocolate chip N. Amer., a small piece or chip of chocolate used in flavouring sweet confections, etc.; so chocolate chip cookie, a traditional variety of sweet biscuit containing chocolate chips; chocolate cream, a confection made from chocolate; (a) see cream n.² 2 a; (b) a form of confectionery consisting of a sweet, flavoured, creamy paste coated with chocolate; chocolate (cream) soldier, (a) a chocolate sweet in the shape of a soldier; (b) transf. a soldier who will not fight; (c) = choco; chocolate drop, a small round sweet-meat made of chocolate; chocolate éclair = éclair q.v.; chocolate-mill, (a) an instrument for mixing the chocolate and milk or water in preparing the beverage; (b) a mill in which the roasted and crushed seeds of the cacao-tree are ground in the preparation of chocolate; chocolate-nut, the cacao-fruit or its seed (it bears nothing of the nature of a nut); chocolate-root, the root of a North American plant, Geum canadense, used as a mild tonic; also the plant itself; chocolate spot (see quot.); chocolate-tree, the cacao-tree, Theobroma Cacao. Also chocolate-house.

1937 I. Gershwin They all Laughed 3 They all laughed..at..Hershey and his *choc'late bar. 1967 Wodehouse Company for Henry v. 74 And now for Mr. Stickney's chocolate bars... He munches them instead of sweets.

1723 J. Nott Cook's Dict. No. 128 C *Chocolate Biskets. 1907 Yesterday's Shopping (1969) 7 Biscuits..Chocolate (Society's make). 1932 L. Golding Magnolia St. i. ii. 40 She insisted on getting some chocolate biscuits for Mrs. Seipel.

1901 Daily Chron. 22 Aug. 3/3 It is odd that a writer whose observation..is so real should..be satisfied with these *chocolate-box conventions. 1931 Wyndham Lewis in Time and Tide 25 July 883 Their faces failing to conform to any recognised chocolate-box canon, thousands of women far better fitted to continue the race than the indolent characterless chocolate-box-faced monsters of prettiness in vogue at the time [etc.]. 1959 Spectator 24 July 102/1 ‘Classical ballet’..in its chocolate-box you will still find a few sexless sylphs and glades. 1965 Listener 18 Nov. 795/2 The sequence.., for all its chocolate-box vulgarity, contains sufficient emotional impact [etc.].

1894 Somerville & ‘Ross’ Real Charlotte I. viii. 114 Christopher will only say that she is *chocolate-boxey! 1923 A. Huxley On Margin 198 A fear of becoming sentimental, or ‘chocolate-boxy’. 1959 Observer 2 Aug. 12/7 The harsh unrelieved lighting tends to make every group on which the camera dwells look chocolate-boxy.

1879 O. N. Rood Chromatics xi. 165 Good representations of olive-greens or *chocolate-browns. 1882 Garden 11 Nov. 417/3 The colour is a bright chocolate-brown.

1868 M. Jewry Warne's Model Cookery 67/2 Scrape up about a quarter of a pound of the *chocolate cake into a saucepan with two gills of water. 1876 M. N. F. Henderson Cooking 299 Chocolate-cake. Make a cup-cake with the following ingredients: One cupful of butter, [etc.]. 1969 R. D. Abrahams Jump-Rope Rhymes 134 My mother made a chocolate cake.

1940 Better Homes & Gardens Nov. 42/3 *Chocolate chip cookies... Chocolate chip cake. 1975 New Yorker 21 July 83/2 For dessert, Keen Specials, which are to chocolate-chip cookies what Frank's hot cooked salami is to salami. 1976 D. Heffron Crusty Crossed xxvii. 168, I added to it a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter and a package of chocolate chips. 1986 Financial Times 15 May 44/8 The decision of a US chocolate chip cookie company to go public on London's Unlisted Securities Market is..one of the more bizarre aspects of the internationalisation of the equity markets.

1799 G. Smith Laboratory II. 34 A deep brown, or *chocolate colour.

1736 B. Lynde Diary 21 Oct. (1880) 91 My *chocolate colored coat. 1819 E. Dana Geogr. Sk. 188 An extensive body of level rich land, of fine black or chocolate coloured soil. 1845 Florist's Jrnl. 15 A dark chocolate-coloured smooth coat. 1906 Westm. Gaz. 12 Apr. 1/3 Vesuvius..showering a thick layer of chocolate-coloured dust over us.

1648 Gage West Ind. xv. (1655) 104 The *Chocolatte-confectioning Donnas.

1723 J. Nott Cook's Dict. No. 131 C *Chocolate Cream. Boil..Sugar in..Milk..beat up the Yolk of an Egg, put it into the Cream..put in Chocolate. 1851 London at Table i. 18 A maraschino jelly, and a chocolate cream, form the sweets. 1879 C. M. Yonge Magnum Bonum I. iv. 58 We'd got nothing to eat but chocolate creams. 1885 Army & Navy Co-op. Soc. Price List 30 Chocolate Creams..per box..1/8. 1931 J. Cannan High Table x. 157 A girl with..a box of chocolate creams on her knees. 1931 S. Jameson Richer Dust iv. 79 A sponge cake, hollow in the centre and heaped with chocolate cream.

1898 Shaw Arms & Man i. 17 You are a very poor soldier—a *chocolate cream soldier! 1898 Westm. Gaz. 27 Apr. 2/2, I cease to ask whether the chocolate cream soldier is true to life.

1882 Garden 18 Nov. 451/3 Flowers..of a rich *chocolate-crimson.

1757 Miller in Phil. Trans. L. 29 Ten or twelve *chocolate-cups of the water.

1826 M. Kelly Reminiscences I. 208 Continually putting *chocolate drops, which he took from his waistcoat pocket, into his mouth. 1883 R. Haldane Workshop Rec. Ser. ii. 160 Chocolate Drops with Nonpareils.

1662 H. Stubbe Ind. Nectar v. 78 Ignorant *Chocolata-makers, who amass whatever is good..to be an ingredient.

1703 Lond. Gaz. No. 3891/3 Lackered Tea-Tables, *Chocolat-Mills. 1769 Mrs. Raffald Eng. Housekpr. (1778) 207 Mill them with a chocolate mill, to raise the froth, and take it off with a spoon as it rises.

1751 Sir J. Hill Mat. Med. (J.), The cacao or *chocolate nut is a fruit of an oblong figure.

1676 Marvell Mr. Smirke Wks. 1875 IV. 80 To come to church with their *chocalatte pots.

1769 Mrs. Raffald Eng. Housekpr. (1778) 277 To make *Chocolate Puffs.

1882 Garden 8 Apr. 230/1 The ground colour is yellow, that of the markings a *chocolate-red.

1662 H. Stubbe Ind. Nectar Pref. 10 The mixture..is..confined only to the common *Chocolata-sellers.

1912 D. H. Lawrence Let. 17 Sept. (1962) I. 147 The officials are all *Chocolate Soldiers. They let you walk through the Customs with a good day. 1918 R. H. Knyvett ‘Over There’ with Australians xvii. 133 There was a good deal of rivalry between us and another brigade known as ‘The Chocolate Soldiers’. 1943, 1955 Chocolate soldier [see choco]. 1959 Listener 1 Oct. 545/2 Captain Kelly, the mole-like chocolate soldier with a passion for soap and water.

1950 N.Z. Jrnl. Agric. Jan. 10/3 *Chocolate spot (Botrytis cinerea) is a fungous disease which can be found on broad beans almost any year.

1832 Veg. Subst. Food 372 The Cacao, or *Chocolate-tree.

  b. chocolate north, chocolate gale: see quots.

1699 W. Dampier Voy. II. ii. i. 39 The next day having a brisk N.W. Wind, which was a kind of a Chocolatta North, we arrived at Port Royal. Ibid. iii. vi. 62 The Wind continues at N.W. blowing only a brisk Gale, which the Jamaica Seamen call a Chocolate North. 1867 Smyth Sailor's Word-bk., Chocolate-gale, a brisk N.W. wind of the West Indies and Spanish main.

  Hence (chiefly nonce-wds.) ˈchocolate v., to drink chocolate; chocolaˈtesque a., pertaining to chocolate; † chocoˈlatical a., of the nature of chocolate; ‖ chocolaˈtier [F.], a maker or seller of chocolate.

1850 B. Taylor Eldorado xxxvii. (1862) 38 We arose in the moonlight, chocolated in the comedor, or dining-hall. 1881 Daily Tel. 2 Mar. 5/3 The late M. Menier, of chocolatesque fame. 1652 Wadsworth Chocolate 14 As for the rest of the ingredients which make our Chocolaticall Confection. 1888 Daily News 23 Apr. 5/3 Sugar workers, liquorice refiners, chocolatiers, and fruit preservers.

Oxford English Dictionary