sweet-bay 
common bay-tree, in southern Europe becoming 
a tree of 40 or 50 feet, in cooler regions grown 
as a shrub. It has lanceolate evergreen leaves with a 
pleasant scent and an aromatic taste, which arc used for 
flavoring in cookery, form an ingredient in several oint- 
ments, and are placed between the layers of Smyrna figs. 
See laureli. 
2. The swamp-laurel Maynolia glauca. See 
Magnolia Sweet-bay oil. See ml. 
sweet-box (swet'boks), 11. A small "box or dish 
intended to hold sweets. 
sweetbread (swet'bred), n. 1. The pancreas 
of an animal, used for food; also, the thymus 
gland so used. Butchers distinguish the two, 
the former being the stomach-sweetbread, the 
latter the neck-sweetbread or throat-sweetbread. 
2f. A bribe or douceur. 
I obtain'd that of the fellow . . . with a few sweet- 
breads that I gave him out of my purse. 
Bp. Bucket, Abp. Williams, II. 163. (Davies.) 
3. A part of the lobster taken from the thorax 
for canning. [Maine.] 
sweet-breastedt (swet'bres' / ted), a. Sweet- 
voiced : from breast, in the old sense of musical 
voice. 
Sweet-breasted as the nightingale or thrush. 
Fletcher (and another), Love's Cure, iii. 1. 
sweet-breathed (swet'bretht), a. Fragrant; 
odorous; sweet- 
smelling. 
The sweet-breathed 
violet of the 
shade. 
Wordsworth, Excur- 
[sion, vii. 
sweetbrier 
(swet'bri"er), n. 
The eglantine, 
Bosa rubiginosa, 
a native of Eu- 
rope and central 
Asia, introduced 
in the eastern 
United States. 
It is a tall-stemmed 
rose armed with Sweetbrier (Ros 
strong and hooked, 
also slender and straight, prickles, the leaves and flowers 
small, the former aromatic-scented, especially in cultiva- 
tion, from copious resiniferous glands beneath and on the 
margins. Also sweettiriar. 
Trees I would have none in it, but some thickets made 
only of sweetoriar and honeysuckle. 
Bacon, Gardens (ed. 1887). 
Sweetbrier-sponge. Same as bedegar. 
sweeten (swe'tn), v. [< sweet + -ml.] I. in- 
trans. To become sweet, in any sense. 
Set a rundlet of verjuice over against the sun in sum- 
mer, ... to see whether it will ripen and sweeten. 
Bacon, Nat. Hist., 898. 
II. trans. 1. To make sweet to any of the 
senses. 
With fairest flowers . . . 
I'll sweeten thy sad grave. 
Shak., Cymbeline, iv. 2. 220. 
Sweeten your tea, and watch your toast. 
Swtft, Panegyric to the Dean. 
2. To make pleasing or grateful to the mind : 
as, to sweeten life ; to sweeten friendship. 
Distance sometimes endears Friendship, and Absence 
sweeteneth it. Howett, Letters, 1. 1. 6. 
3. To make mild or kind ; soften. 
Devotion softens his heart, enlightens his mind, sweetens 
his temper. W. Law. 
4. To make less painful or laborious; lighten. 
Thus Noah sweetens his Captivity, 
Beguiles the time, and charms his misery, 
Hoping in God alone. 
Sylvester, tr. of Du Bartas's Weeks, ii., The Ark. 
And hope of future good, as we know, sweetens all suf- 
fering. J. H. Newman, Gram, of Assent, p. 390. 
5. To increase the agreeable qualities of ; also, 
to render less disagreeable or harsh: as, to 
sweeten the joys or pleasures of life. 
Correggio has made his name immortal by the strength 
he has given to his figures, and by sweetening his lights 
and shades. Dryden, tr. of Dufresnoy. (Johnson.) 
6. To make pure and wholesome by destroy- 
ing noxious or offensive matter ; bring back to 
a state of purity or freshness ; free from taint: 
as, to sweeten apartments that have been infect- 
ed ; to sweeten the air ; to sweeten water. 
The one might be employed in healing those blotches 
and tumours which break out in the body, while the other 
is sweetening the blood and rectifying the constitution. 
Addison, Spectator, No. 16. 
7. To make mellow and fertile : as, to dry and 
sweeten soils. 
sweetener (swet'ner), n. [< sweeten + -!.] 
One who or that which sweetens, in any sense. 
6108 
Powder of crab's eyes and claws, and burnt egg-shells, 
are often prescribed as nweetners of any sharp humours. 
Sir W. Temple, Health and Long Life. 
Above all, the ideal with him [Spenser! was not a thing 
apart and unattainable, but the sweetener and ennobler of 
the street and the fireside. 
Lowell, in N. A. Rev., CXX. 357. 
sweetening (swet'ning), n. [Verbal n. of 
sweeten, v.] That which sweetens; a sub- 
stance, as sugar, used to sweeten something. 
Long sweetening, molasses. [Local, U. S.] 
Long sweetening (molasses), he says, came to them from 
Virginia, and is still used in remote districts. 
Trans. Amor. Philol. Ass., XVII. 34. 
An' pour the longest sweetnin' in. 
Lowell, Biglow Papers, 1st ser., viii. 
Short sweetening, sugar. [Local, u. s.] 
sweet-fern (swet'fern'),w. 1. A fragrant shrub, 
Hyrica (Comptonia) asplenifolia. Its leaves, 
sweetness 
An araceous plant, 
Branch with Fruit of Sweet-fem (Myrica asplenifolia). 
a, male catkins ; b, scale of male flower ; c, the fruit, with the eight 
bristles ; a, part of the leaf, showing the nervation. 
which are fern-like in aspect, contain 9 or 10 
percent, of tannin. See Comptonia. 2. The 
European sweet cicely, Myrrhis odorata, which 
has leaves dissected like those of a fern. [Prov. 
Eng.] 
sweet-flag (swet'flag'), . 
Acorus Calamus, with 
sword-shaped leaves 
and two-edged leaf -like 
scapes, from one edge 
of which emerges a 
cylindrical spadix. it 
has a pungent and aromatic 
property, especially its thick 
creeping rootstock, which 
forms the officinal calamus 
aromaticus. This is now 
sparingly used as a sto- 
machic, also in confection- 
ery and in kinds of distilling 
and brewing. Also calamus, 
sweet-rush, sweet sedge. 
sweet-gale (swet'gal), 
n. See gale$. 
sweet-grass (swef- 
gras), n. A grass of 
the genus Glyceria: so 
called doubtless from 
the fondness of cattle 
for G. fluitans. Locally 
applied also to the woodruff, 
Asperula odorata, and the 
grass-wrack, Zostera mari- 
na. [Great Britain.] 
sweet-gum (swef- 
gum), n. The Ameri- 
can liquidambar, Li- 
quidambar Styraciflua, 
or its exuding balsam. 
See Liquidambar, and liquid storax (under 
star ax). 
sweetheart (swet'hart), n. [< ME. swetelierte; 
orig. two words, swete herte, 'sweet heart,' i. e. 
' dear love ' : see sweet and heart.] A person be- 
loved; a lover; more commonly, a girl beloved. 
[Colloq.] 
For thow hast lengthed my lif, & my langour schortet, 
Thurth the solas <fc the sijt of the, my swete hert ! 
William of Palerne (E. E. T. S.), 1. 1550. 
Mistress, . . . you must retire yourself 
Into some covert ; take your sweetheart's hat, 
And pluck it o'er your brows. 
Shak., W. T., iv. 4. 664. 
sweetheart (swet'hart), v. [< sweetheart, .] 
I. trans. To act the part of a lover to; pay court 
to ; gallant : as, to sweetheart a lady. [Colloq.] 
Imp. Diet. 
Flowering Plant of Sweet-flag 
(Acorus Calamus). 
a, the spadix ; b, a flower ; c, 
one of the anthers with the peri- 
anth-scale. 
II. intrans. To perform the part of a lover ; 
act the gallant ; play the wooer : as, he is going 
a sivectheartixg. [Colloq.] 
I see he 's for taking her to sit down, now they're at 
the end o' the dance ; that looks like sweet-heartiny, that 
does. George Eliot, Silas Marner, xi. 
sweeties (sv/e'tiz),n.pl. [Dim. of sweets.] Con- 
fections; candies; sweets. [Colloq., Great Brit- 
ain.] 
Sweeties to bestow on lasses. 
Ramsay, Poems, II. 547. (Jamieson.) 
Instead of finding bonbons or sweeties in the packets 
which we pluck off the boughs, we find enclosed Mr. Car- 
nifex's review of the quarter's meat. 
Thackeray, Roundabout Papers, x. (Davies.) 
sweeting (swe'ting), n. [< ME. swetiny, stcetyng ; 
< sweet + -iw</ 3 .] 1. A sweet apple. 
Swetyng, an apple, pomme doulce. Palsgrave. 
2. A term of endearment. 
"Nai sertes, swetiny," he seide, " that schal i neuer." 
William of Palerne (E. E. T. S.), 1. 916. 
Trip no further, pretty sweeting. 
Shak., T. N., ii. 3. 43. 
sweet-John (swet'jon), n. A flower of the nar- 
row-leaved varieties of a species of pink, Di- 
anthvs barbatus, as distinguished from other 
varieties called sweet-william. 
Armoires. . . . The flowers called Sweet-Johns, or Sweet- 
Williams, Tolmeyners, and London-tufts. Cotgrave. 
sweetkint (swet'kin), a. [< sweet + dim. -kin. 
Cf. MD. soetjcen, a sweetheart.] Sweet; lovely. 
The consistorians, or setled standers of Yarmouth . . . 
gather about him, as flocking to hansell him [a Londoner] 
and strike him good luck, as the sweetkin madams did 
about valiant Sir Walter Manny. 
Noshe, Lenten Stuffe (Harl. Misc., VI. 163). 
SWeetleaf (swet'lef ), n. A small tree or shrub, 
Symplocos tinctoria, found in deep woods or on 
the borders of cypress-swamps in the southern 
United States. Its leaves are sweet to the taste, greed- 
ily eaten by cattle and horses, and they yield, as does also 
the bark, a yellow dye. Also called horse-sugar. 
sweetlips (swet'lips), n. 1 . One who has sweet 
lips: a term of endearment. 2f. An epicure ; 
a glutton. Halliwell. 3. The ballanwrasse, 
Labrus maculatus. Also called Servellan wrasse. 
See cut under Labrus. [Yorkshire, Eng.] 
sweetly (swet'li), adv. [< ME. sweteliehe, suettly, 
swetlike; < AS. swetlice, < swete, sweet: see sweet 
and -ly 2 .] In a sweet manner, in any sense of 
the word sweet. 
Smelling so sweetly, all musk. 
Shak., M. W. of W., ii. 2. 67. 
sweetmeat (swet'met), B. [< ME. swete mete, 
< AS. swete mete, usually in pi. swete metas, sweet 
meats: see sweet a,n<lmeafi.] 1. Asweetthing 
to eat; an article of confectionery made wholly 
or principally of sugar; a bonbon: usually in 
the plural. 2. Fruit preserved with sugar, 
either moist or dry; a conserve; a preserve: 
usually in the plural. 
For the servants . . . thrust aside my chair, when they 
set the sweetmeats on the table. 
Addison, Guardian, No. 163. 
The little box contained only a few pieces of candied 
angelica, or some such lady-like sweetmeat. 
Scott, Chronicles of the Canongate, vi. 
3. One of the common slipper-limpets of the 
United States, Crepidula fornicata. See Crepi- 
dula. [Local, U.S.] 4. A varnish for patent 
leather. 
sweet-mouthedt (swet'moutht), a. Fond of 
sweets; dainty. 
Plato checked and rebuked Aristippus, for that he was 
so swete mouthed and drouned in the voluptuousnes of 
high fare. Udatt, tr. of Apophthegms of Erasmus, p. 49. 
Sweet-nancy (swet'nan'si), n. The double- 
flowered variety of Narcissus poeticus. Britten 
and Holland. [Prov. Eng.] 
In his button-hole was stuck a narcissus (a sweet Nancy 
is its pretty Lancashire name). 
Mrs. Gaskett, Mary Barton, viii. 
sweetness (swet'nes), n. [< ME. swetnesse, 
swotnesse, < AS. swetnes (= OHG. suosnassi, 
suaznissi, swuaznissa), < swete, sweet: see sweet 
and -ness.'] The quality of being sweet, in any 
sense. 
Where the new-born brier 
Breathes forth the sweetness that her April yields. 
Quarles, Emblems, iv. 7. 
Be a princess 
In sweetness as in blood ; give him his doom, 
Or raise him up to comfort. 
Ford, Broken Heart, iii. 5. 
We [the bees] have rather chose to fill our hives with 
honey and wax, thus furnishing mankind with the two 
noblest of things, which are sweetness and light. 
Swift, Battle of the Books. 
The charm of a yew bow is what archers call its sweet- 
ness that is, its softness of flexure and recoil. 
Tritium Book of Sports, p. 13. 
