sweet

a sweet apple

A few types of molecules get sensed by receptors on the tongue. Protons coming off of acids ping receptors for "sour." Sugars get received as "sweet." Bitter, salty, and the proteinaceous flavor umami all set off their own neural cascades.

2018 May 16, Adam Rogers, “The Fundamental Nihilism of Yanny vs. Laurel”, in Wired:

Sweet wines are better dessert wines.

sweet butter

a sweet scent

Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me, / I will give them all back again.

1838 October, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Reaper and the Flowers”, in Voices of the Night, Cambridge, Mass.: […] John Owen, published 1839, →OCLC, page 8:

sweet milk

Not decaying, fermented, rancid, sour, spoiled, or stale.

a sweet tune

The cicale above in the lime, / And the lizards below in the grass, / Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was, / Listening to my sweet pipings.

a. 1823 (date written), Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Hymn of Pan”, in Mary W[ollstonecraft] Shelley, editor, Posthumous Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley, London: […] [C. H. Reynell] for John and Henry L[eigh] Hunt, […], published 1824, →OCLC, page 169:

a voice sweet, tremulous, but powerful

1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Ticknor and Fields, page 135:

a sweet child

You're so sweet!

There's something tragic, but almost pure / Think I could love you, but I'm not sure / There's something wholesome, there's something sweet / Tucked in your eyes that I'd love to meet

2017 April 13, Mitchy Collins, Samantha Derosa, Christian Medice, “Broken”, in Finding It Hard to Smile, performed by Lovelytheband:

It was sweet of him to help out.

sweet gas

sweet soil

sweet crude oil

(mineralogy) Free from excessive unwanted substances like acid or sulphur.

The new Lexus was a sweet birthday gift.

Her crew knew that deep in her heart beat engines fit and able to push her blunt old nose ahead at a sweet fourteen knots, come Hell or high water.

1932, Delos W. Lovelace, King Kong, published 1965, page 1:

14 November 2014, Steven Haliday, Scotland 1-0 Republic of Ireland: Maloney the hero
GORDON Strachan enjoyed the sweetest of his 16 matches in charge of Scotland so far as his team enhanced their prospects of Euro 2016 qualification with a crucial and deserved victory over Republic of Ireland.

"Visit in two days though," said Tommo. "Hang in there mate, got a joey coming, we'll be sweet then."

2012, John Hoskison, Inside: One Man's Experience of Prison:

(Australia, slang) Doing well; in a good or happy position.

The attraction was mutual and instant; they were sweet on one another from first sight.

(informal, followed by on) Romantically fixated; enamored with; fond of.

sweet water

The white of an egg, or blood mingled with salt water, doth gather the saltness and maketh the water sweeter; this may be by adhesion.

1627, Francis Bacon, “Sylva Sylvarum: or A Natural History”, in The Works of Francis Bacon, published 1826, page 66:

Nothing has been found so effectual for preserving water sweet at sea, during long voyages, as charring the insides of the casks well before they are filled.

1821, Robert Thomas, The modern practice of physic, page 713:

a sweet face

a sweet colour or complexion

Sweet interchange / Of hill and valley, rivers, woods, and plains.

1667, John Milton, Paradise lost (source), Samuel Simmons, page 278

Pleasing to the eye; beautiful; mild and attractive; fair.

For someone who hadn't seen her only sister in over twenty years, Alice sure took her sweet time.

2014, Rexanne Becnel, Leaving L.A., page 12:

en-adj

sweet (comparative sweeter, superlative sweetest)

sweeter (comparative)
sweetest (superlative)

nonsweet

antonym(s) of “containing a sweetening ingredient”

dry

of wines: retaining a portion of natural sugar

decaying

antonym(s) of “not decaying, fermented, rancid, sour, spoiled, or stale”

sour

antonym(s) of “free from excessive unwanted substances”

lame

antonym(s) of “(informal) very pleasing”

money won is twice as sweet as money earned

fresk

not decaying, rancid, sour, spoiled, or stale

From Middle English swete, from Old English swēte (“sweet”), from Proto-West Germanic *swōtī, from Proto-Germanic *swōtuz (“sweet”), from Proto-Indo-European *swéh₂dus (“sweet”).
Cognate and synonymous with Scots sweit (“sweet”), North Frisian sweete (“sweet”), Saterland Frisian swäit (“sweet”), West Frisian swiet (“sweet”), Dutch zoet (“sweet”), German Low German sööt (“sweet”), German süß (“sweet”), Danish sød (“sweet”), Swedish söt (“sweet”), Norwegian søt (“sweet”), Icelandic sætur (“sweet”), Latin suāvis, Sanskrit स्वादु (svādú), Ancient Greek ἡδύς (hēdús). Doublet of suave.


sweet

They're making a sequel? Ah, sweet!

Used as a positive response to good news or information.


sweet

Go down beside thy native rill,
On thy Parnassus set thy feet,
And hear thy laurel whisper sweet
About the ledges of the hill.

1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, Canto XXXVII, page 57:

en-adv

sweet (comparative more sweet, superlative most sweet)

more sweet (comparative)
most sweet (superlative)


sweet

(uncountable) The basic taste sensation induced by sugar.

(countable, especially UK) A confection made from sugar, or high in sugar content; a candy.

Can we see the sweet menu, please?

(countable, especially UK) A food eaten for dessert.

VVherefore frovvnes my ſvveet? / Haue I too long bene abſent from theſe lips, / This cheeke, theſe eyes?

1611, Ben[jamin] Jonson, Catiline His Conspiracy, London: […] [William Stansby?] for Walter Burre, →OCLC, Act I, signature B2, verso:

"You think that I'll take anything."
"I know you will, sweet..."
"There wasn't going to be any of that. You promised there wouldn't be."
"Well, there is now," she said sweetly.

1936 Aug., Ernest Hemingway, "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber", Cosmopolitan

Good evening, my sweet.

Synonym of sweetheart, a term of affection.

a wilderness of sweets

1667, John Milton, “Book V”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

(obsolete) That which is sweet or pleasant in odour; a perfume.

Fear's fire to fervency, which makes love's sweet prove nectar.

1613, John Marston, William Barksted, The Insatiate Countess, III.2:

(obsolete) Sweetness, delight; something pleasant to the mind or senses.

en-noun

sweet (countable and uncountable, plural sweets)


sweet

In size and shape it resembles the heart of a calf, and the interior substance is similar to thick cream, sweeted with fine sugar.

1825, John Breckinridge, C.R. Harrison, Western Luminary ... - Volume 1, page 318:

It might also be given in the form of a mixture — the drug being insoluble in a watery menstruum — suspended by the aid of mucilage and sweeted by any of the various flavoring syrups.

1890, The Cincinnati Lancet-clinic - Volume 63, page 331:

Bring me now where the warm wind blows, where the grasses sigh, where the sweet-tongued blossom flowers; where the shower, fan soft like a fishermans net thrown through the sweeted air.

1997, Morag Styles, From the Garden to the Street, →ISBN:

A sour maketh sweets two-fold sweeted.

2012, Keith Ringkamp, PATIENCE WORTH: A Balm for Every Ill, →ISBN, page 34:

en-verb

sweet (third-person singular simple present sweets, present participle sweeting, simple past and past participle sweeted)

sweets (present singular third-person)
sweeting (participle present)
sweeted (participle past)
sweeted (past)