Wednesday, July 10, 2019

Sweet

Sweet

The word sweet has been with us since we were speaking Old English. It came through Germanic languages from Proto-Indo-European. Though for a time it meant to advise, for years it has mostly meant pleasant to the senses.

Idioms involving the word sweet are rife:

1290 — sweetheart
1300s — life is sweet
1590s — a rose by any other name would smell as sweet
1700s — sweet dreams
1723 — sweet and sour foods 
1767 — sweet sixteen
1823 — home sweet home 
1900 — sweet nothings
1914 — toot sweet (from the French tout de suite
1935 — sweet talk 
1957 — sweet smell of success 
1976 — sweet spot
1971 — sweet as tupelo honey

And here are some I can’t find origin dates for:
short & sweet
sweet young thing
sweet as pie
in one’s own sweet time
sweetie-pie

Nothing like a little sweetness. 




Big thanks to this week’s sources:  Merriam Webster,Word Histories, Phrases.org, Stack ExchangeNew Republic, & Etymonline.

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