sweetness

views updated May 23 2018

sweet·ness / ˈswētnis/ • n. the quality of being sweet. ∎  used as an affectionate form of address, though often ironically: I've just got to go, sweetness.PHRASES: sweetness and light social or political harmony: Khrushchev's next visit to the West was one of sweetness and light. ∎  a reasonable and peaceable person: when he's around she's all sweetness and light.

The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English

sweetness

views updated May 14 2018

sweetness sweetness and light social or political harmony; a phrase taken from originally Swift in his preface to The Battle of the Books (1704). The term was taken up and used with aesthetic or moral reference, initially by Matthew Arnold in Culture and Anarchy (1869).

See also sweet, sweetest.

The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable ELIZABETH KNOWLES

sweetness

views updated Jun 11 2018

sweetness One of the five basic senses of taste.

A Dictionary of Food and Nutrition DAVID A. BENDER

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