[ad. F. sucre candi (in which candi was at an early date apprehended as a pa. pple.; cf. 15th c. chucre candit, and It. zucchero candito), corresp. to Pr. sucre cande, Sp. azucar candi, Pg. assucar candi, MLG. suckercandi (also -ît), early mod.Du. suycker candye (Du. kandij-suiker), G. zuckerkand (16th c.), med.L. succar-candi; repr. Arab. sukkar SUGAR + qandī of sugar, f. qand sugar, a. Pers. kand = Skr. khaṇḍa sugar in pieces (cf. khaṇḍa śarkarā candied sugar), orig. piece, fragment, f. root khaṇḍ to break.]
1. Sugar clarified and crystallized by slow evaporation.
Brown (or † red) sugar-candy: that obtained at the first crystallization. While sugar-candy: that obtained by reboiling the former and allowing it to crystallize.
[1390. Earl Derby’s Exped. (Camden), 19. Pro vj lb. sucri candy.] Ibid. (1392), 219. Pro diversis speciebus … emptis … viz. croco,… gariofilis, sugre candy, sugre caffetin.
c. 1420. Liber Cocorum (1862), 7. With sugur candy, thou may hit dowce.
c. 1460. J. Russell, Bk. Nurture, 757. Whot appuls & peres with sugre Candy.
[1510. trans. Rentale Dunkeld. (S.H.S.), 213. Zucro candey.]
1584. Cogan, Haven Health, cxxix. (1636), 128. White sugar is not so good for flegme, as that which is called Sugar Candie.
1596. Shaks., 1 Hen. IV., III. iii. 180. One poore peny-worth of Sugar-candie to make ther long-winded.
1610. Shuttleworths’ Acc. (Chetham Soc.), 191. Halfe a pound of brown suger candie, xijd. Ibid. (1611), 196. White suger candie.
1620. Venner, Via Recta, vi. 102. Red Sugar-Candy, which is only good in glysters.
1664. Power, Exp. Philos., I. 27. Diaphanous like Sugar-Candy.
1755. Smollett, Quix. (1803), IV. 8. I thought … his voice as sweet as sugar-candy.
1836–41. Brande, Chem. (ed. 5), 115. Thus we see sugar-candy crystallized upon strings, and verdigris upon sticks.
1864. Garrod, Mat. Med. (ed. 2), 316. Cane sugar … crystallized from a strong solution with the addition of spirit … forms oblique four-sided prisms, sugar candy.
2. fig. Something sweet, pleasant or delicious.
1591. Greene, Farew. Follie, Wks. (Grosart), IX. 294. Sugar candie she is, as I gesse, fro the waist to the kneestead.
1591. Harington, Orl. Fur., Pref. ¶ 8. In verse is both goodnesse and sweetnesse, Rubarb and Sugercandie, the pleasaunt and the profitable.
1593. G. Harvey, Pierce’s Super., Wks. (Grosart), II. 254. O the sugarcandy of the delicate bag pipe there.
1817. Byron, Beppo, lxxx. Oh, for old Saturn’s reign of sugar-candy!
1889. Gretton, Memory’s Harkback, 94. Lord John Russell, to whom a rap at the University was always sugar-candy.
b. attrib. or as adj. Sugared, honeyed, deliciously sweet.
1575. G. Harvey, Letter-bk. (Camden), 91. The goodliest suugercandye style That ever cam neere me a mile.
1602. 2nd Pt. Return fr. Parnass., III. iv. 1377. Give him some sugar candy tearms.
1602. Middleton, Blurt, Master-Constable, V. ii. No, no, my sugar-candy mistress, your goodman is not here.
1903. Ld. R. Gower, Rec. & Rem., 149. The party in that sugar-candy, cake-like house of wits was a small one.
1909. Daily Chron., 20 Sept., 4/6. Sugar-candy hymns.
3. attrib., as sugar-candy powder, stick; also applied locally to crystallized geological formations (see quots. 1778, 1876).
1683. Tryon, Way to Health, xv. (1697), 368. Take … White-Sugar candy-powder one Dram and half.
1706. E. Ward, Wooden World Diss. (1708), 77. A mere Sugar-candy Stick, in Comparison to his Cat of Nine-Tails.
1778. W. Pryce, Min. Cornub., 92. A white candied, or pellucid Crystal, commonly termed a White Sugar Candy (Spar) Crystal.
1876. Woodward, Geol. Eng. & Wales, 204. The beds at Portland and Tisbury contain beautiful yellow crystals of sulphate of barytes (sugar candy stone).
