vbl. sb. [f. SUGAR v. + -ING1.]
1. Sugary or sweet matter; sweetening. Also, the adding of sugar.
1740. Cheyne, Regimen, 339. Noviciats in the spiritual Life are often gratified with such Sugarings for their Encouragement; but Bread is for grown Persons.
1887. Cassell’s Dict., Sugaring,… Sugar used for sweetening, &c.
1892. Daily News, 16 Sept., 5/5. The California prune … will keep better and longer without sugaring than the latter.
1907. Westm. Gaz., 1 June, 2/1. The less alcoholic wines of the North, artificially strengthened by sugaring.
2. U.S. The manufacture of sugar from the maple. Also sugaring off (see SUGAR v. 3).
1836. in [Mrs. Traill], Backw. Canada, App. 316. The best rule I can give as to the sugaring-off, as it is termed, is to let the liquid continue at a fast boil.
1845. S. Judd, Margaret, II. i. (1871), 151. The neighbors, boys and girls, come in at the ‘sugaring off.’
1872. S. De Vere, Americanisms, 206. The verb to sugar off is derived from the custom of winding up the sugaring at a certain period.
1904. W. Churchill, Crossing, I. xi. 136. Then came the sugaring, the warm days and the freezing nights when the earth stirs in her sleep and the taps drip from red sunrise to red sunset.
attrib. 1836. [Mrs. Traill], Backw. Canada, 156. Till it has arrived at the sugaring point.
1897. Advance (Chicago), 8 April, 455/2. The sugaring parts of Ohio.
1899. Rollin Lynde Hartt, in Atlantic Monthly, April, 561/2. In sugaring time, Deacon Abram deliberately lets five barrels of maple sap soak into the brown earth rather than gather it upon the Lord’ Day.
3. (See SUGAR v. 1 c.) Also attrib.
1857. Zoologist, Ser. I. XV. 5649. Sugaring by night is certainly very profitable for Lepidoptera, ants and cockroaches.
1882. Cassell’s Nat. Hist., VI. 32. This mode of collecting is called ‘sugaring,’ and is somewhat uncertain, as on some nights the sugar will be covered with Moths, and on others you will scarcely find one.
1902. S. Squire Sprigge, Industr. Chevalier, vii. 170. A midnight sugaring expedition.
