SWEET

sweet. Sweet, a. grateful to the taste, smell, ear or eye, pleasant, nice, fine, mild, soft, not stale, fresh

---

Sweet (?), a. [Compar. Sweeter (?); superl. Sweetest.] [[OE. swete, swote, sote, AS. swēte; akin to OFries. swēte, OS. swōti, D. zoet, G. süss, OHG. suozi, Icel. sætr, sœtr, Sw. söt, Dan. söd, Goth. suts, L. suavis, for suadvis, Gr. �, Skr. svādu sweet, svad, svād, to sweeten. √175. Cf. Assuage, Suave, Suasion.]] 1. 1. Having an agreeable taste or flavor such as that of sugar; saccharine; — opposed to sour and bitter; as, a sweet beverage; sweet fruits; sweet oranges.
2. 2. Pleasing to the smell; fragrant; redolent; balmy; as, a sweet rose; sweet odor; sweet incense.
The breath of these flowers is sweet to me. Longfellow. 3. 3. Pleasing to the ear; soft; melodious; harmonious; as, the sweet notes of a flute or an organ; sweet music; a sweet voice; a sweet singer.
To make his English sweet upon his tongue. Chaucer. A voice sweet, tremulous, but powerful. Hawthorne. 4. 4. Pleasing to the eye; beautiful; mild and attractive; fair; as, a sweet face; a sweet color or complexion.
Sweet interchange Of hill and valley, rivers, woods, and plains. Milton. 5. 5. Fresh; not salt or brackish; as, sweet water. Bacon.
6. 6. Not changed from a sound or wholesome state. Specifically: (a) Not sour; as, sweet milk or bread. (b) Not state; not putrescent or putrid; not rancid; as, sweet butter; sweet meat or fish.
7. 7. Plaesing to the mind; mild; gentle; calm; amiable; winning; presuasive; as, sweet manners.
Canst thou bind the sweet influence of Pleiades? Job xxxviii. 31. Mildness and sweet reasonableness is the one established rule of Christian working. M. Arnold. ☞ Sweet is often used in the formation of self-explaining compounds; as, sweet-blossomed, sweet-featured, sweet-smelling, sweet-tempered, sweet-toned, etc. Sweet alyssum. (Bot.) See Alyssum. — Sweet apple. (Bot.) (a) Any apple of sweet flavor. (b) See Sweet-sop. — Sweet bay. (Bot.) (a) The laurel (Laurus nobilis). (b) Swamp sassafras. — Sweet calabash (Bot.), a plant of the genus Passiflora (P. maliformis) growing in the West Indies, and producing a roundish, edible fruit, the size of an apple. — Sweet cicely. (Bot.) (a) Either of the North American plants of the umbelliferous genus Osmorrhiza having aromatic roots and seeds, and white flowers. Gray. (b) A plant of the genus Myrrhis (M. odorata) growing in England. — Sweet calamus, or Sweet cane. (Bot.) Same as Sweet flag, below. — Sweet Cistus (Bot.), an evergreen shrub (Cistus Ladanum) from which the gum ladanum is obtained. — Sweet clover. (Bot.) See Melilot. — Sweet coltsfoot (Bot.), a kind of butterbur (Petasites sagittata) found in Western North America. — Sweet corn (Bot.), a variety of the maize of a sweet taste. See the Note under Corn. — Sweet fern (Bot.), a small North American shrub (Comptonia, or Myrica, asplenifolia) having sweet-scented or aromatic leaves resembling fern leaves. — Sweet flag (Bot.), an endogenous plant (Acorus Calamus) having long flaglike leaves and a rootstock of a pungent aromatic taste. It is found in wet places in Europe and America. See Calamus, 2. — Sweet gale (Bot.), a shrub (Myrica Gale) having bitter fragrant leaves; — also called sweet willow, and Dutch myrtle. See 5th Gale. — Sweet grass (Bot.), holy, or Seneca, grass. — Sweet gum (Bot.), an American tree (Liquidambar styraciflua). See Liquidambar. — Sweet herbs, fragrant herbs cultivated for culinary purposes. — Sweet John (Bot.), a variety of the sweet William. — Sweet leaf (Bot.), horse sugar. See under Horse. — Sweet marjoram. (Bot.) See Marjoram. — Sweet marten (Zoöl.), the pine marten. — Sweet maudlin (Bot.), a composite plant (Achillea Ageratum) allied to milfoil. — Sweet oil, olive oil. — Sweet pea. (Bot.) See under Pea. — Sweet potato. (Bot.) See under Potato. — Sweet rush (Bot.), sweet flag. — Sweet spirits of niter (Med. Chem.) See Spirit of nitrous ether, under Spirit. — Sweet sultan (Bot.), an annual composite plant (Centaurea moschata), also, the yellow-flowered (C. odorata); — called also sultan flower. — Sweet tooth, an especial fondness for sweet things or for sweetmeats. — Sweet William. (a) (Bot.) A species of pink (Dianthus barbatus) of many varieties. (b) (Zoöl.) The willow warbler. (c) (Zoöl.) The European goldfinch; — called also sweet Billy. — Sweet willow (Bot.), sweet gale. — Sweet wine. See Dry wine, under Dry. — To be sweet on, to have a particular fondness for, or special interest in, as a young man for a young woman. Thackeray. Syn. — Sugary; saccharine; dulcet; luscious.