Forms: 5–6 sugre, 6–7 suger, 7– sugar. [f. SUGAR sb.]
1. trans. To mix, cover, sprinkle or sweeten with sugar.
1530. Palsgr., 743/1. I suger, I make swete with suger, je sucre.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 16. With Water thick Sugred.
1736. Bailey, Househ. Dict., Mm 3 b. To Sugar all Sorts of small Fruit.
1806. Southey, Lett. to Mary Barker. Rum and water … sugared to the utmost.
1824. Ld. Grenville, Nugæ Metricæ, 87. We now sugar our cups as freely as our ancestors spiced and drugged them.
1872. Geo. Eliot, Middlem., li. When I sugar my liquor.
absol. 1834, 1850. [see CREAM v. 6].
b. in fig. context (cf. 2).
1610. T. Abbott, Old Way, 9. To Suger the brims of their intoxicated Cups, that men the more greedily … may drinke those venimous potions.
1642. D. Rogers, Naaman, 320. Instead of (Master) call him (Father) sugering the bitter potion they were to minister.
1654. Fuller, Comm. Ruth (1868), 137. One dram whereof is able to sugar the most wormwood affliction.
1740. [see SUGARING vbl. sb. 1].
c. intr. To spread sugar mixed with beer, gum, etc., upon trees or the like in order to catch moths. Also trans. with the tree as obj.
1857, 1882. [see SUGARING vbl. sb. 3].
1889. Pall Mall Gaz., 20 Aug., 3/1. They were out late ‘sugaring for moths.’
1892. F. E. Beddard, Anim. Coloration, iii. 84. Any lepidopterist who has ‘sugared’ in the New Forest.
1902. S. Squire Sprigge, Industr. Chevalier, vii. 165. There are crowds of them,… who go out beating bushes, tapping palings, and sugaring trees.
2. fig. To make sweet, agreeable or palatable.
1412–20. Lydg., Chron. Troy, Prol. 57. That wyth thyn hony swete Sugrest tongis of rethoricyens.
1429. Pol. Poems (Rolls), II. 145. Thy right ay sugre with remyssioun.
a. 1586. Sidney, Arcadia, III. xxvii. The messenger,… having ever used to sugre any thing which his Maister was to receave.
1613–8. Daniel, Coll. Hist. Eng. (1626), 51. To baite the people, and sugar their subiection.
1639. S. Du Verger, trans. Camus’ Admir. Events, 194. Bad love is sugered full of quaint wantonesses.
1681. T. Flatman, Heraclitus Ridens, No. 23 (1713), I. 152. Jest. Oh, Mr. Sham’s … turn’d true Protestant! Earn. Nay, I thought so by their sugaring the Oaths.
[1878. C. Gibbon, For the King, iii. Madam, I can sugar my pills, but I cannot sugar my words.]
absol. 1604. Shaks., Oth., I. iii. 216. These Sentences, to Sugar, or to Gall, Being strong on both sides, are Equiuocall.
b. with over.
1602. Shaks., Ham. (Qo. 1), 1768. Then I perceiue there’s treason in his lookes That seem’d to sugar o’re his villanie.
1649. Milton, Eikon., Pref., Wks. 1851, III. 330. The common grounds of Tyranny and Popery, sugard a little over.
1686. H. More, Lett., in Norris, Th. Love, etc. (1688), 217. A sin … sugar’d over with the circumstance of Jucundum or Vtile or both.
1830. Cunningham, Brit. Paint., II. 77. Burke … endeavoured to soothe down his rugged spirit and sugar over the bitterness of his nature.
1849. Robertson, Serm., Ser. I. ix. (1866), 152. Names … with which this world sugars over its dark guilt.
3. intr. usually sugar off: in U.S. and Canada, in the manufacture of maple-sugar, to complete the boiling down of the syrup in preparation for granulation.
1836. in [Mrs. Traill], Backw. Canada, App. 316. Those that sugar-off outside the house have a wooden crane fixed against a stump.
1845. [see SUGARING vbl. sb. 2).
1884. Blakelee, Indust. Cycl., 432. If it is noticed while sugaring off that the syrup is scorched.
1892. Howells, Mercy, 17. Families that you find up in the hills, where the whole brood study Greek while they are sugaring off in the spring.
4. Cambridge Univ. Rowing slang. To shirk while pretending to row hard.
1890. Barrère & Leland, Slang Dict. (1897), 307/2.
1894. Daily News, 6 Feb., 3/5. Now do look alive, number ninety and five, You’re ‘sugaring.’
1898. Blackw. Mag., Jan., 48/1. Don’t ‘sugar,’ four.
