I. ˈshu̇gə(r) noun
( -s )
Etymology: Middle English sucre, sugre, suger, from Middle French çucre, sucre, from Medieval Latin zuccarum, succarum, from Old Italian zucchero, from Arabic sukkar, from Persian shakar, from Prakrit sakkara, from Sanskrit śarkarā gravel, grit, sugar; akin to Sanskrit śarkara pebble
1.
a. : a sweet crystallizable substance that consists entirely or essentially of sucrose, that is colorless or white when pure and usually yellowish to brown otherwise, that occurs naturally in the most readily available amounts in sugarcane, sugar beet, sugar maple, sorghum, and sugar palms, that is obtained commercially principally by processing the juice expressed from sugarcane or the aqueous extract of sliced sugar beets and refining so that the final product is the same regardless of the source, and that forms an important article of human food and is used also chiefly as a condiment and preservative for other foods and for drugs and in the chemical industry as an intermediate — see beet sugar , brown sugar 1, cane sugar , invert sugar , maple sugar 1, saccharose
b. : any of a class of water-soluble compounds (as glucose, fructose, xylose, sucrose, maltose, or raffinose) that vary widely in sweetness, comprise the simpler carbohydrates, include not only the monosaccharides but also the oligosaccharides, may be reducing or nonreducing, and typically are optically active
2. : a unit (as a spoonful, cube, or lump) of sugar
how many sugars in your tea
3. : sugar bowl
offering sugars, creamers in styles to match — Edison Electric Appliances Cat.
4. slang : money
undergoing an operation that cost heavy sugar — Mickey Spillane
spend my good sugar on a taxi — Auckland (New Zealand) Weekly News
5. — used as an interjection to express annoyance or disappointment
II. verb
( sugared ; sugared ; sugaring -g(ə)riŋ ; sugars )
Etymology: Middle English sugren, from sugre sugar
transitive verb
1. : to make pleasing, palatable, or deceptively attractive : sweeten , sugarcoat
novels heavy with moral teaching and sugared with romance — American Guide Series: New York
sugaring the reproach with the expression of endearment — Vicki Baum
— often used with over or up
with devotion's visage … we do sugar o'er the devil himself — Shakespeare
his inclination to sugar up reality — David Tilden
2. : to sprinkle sugar on : mix sugar with : put sugar into
sugar a cake
sugar the mixture to taste
sugar tea
intransitive verb
1. : to form sugar
continued stirring will cause a syrup to sugar
2. : to become granular in texture : granulate
a varnish that sugars
III. adjective
Etymology: sugar (I)
1. : made or derived from sugar
2. : having the sweetness of sugar
3. : attracted to sugar
4. : used with sugar or in the making of sugar
IV.
Usage: usually capitalized
— a communications code word for the letter s