01 a. Having an agreeable taste or flavor such as that of sugar; saccharine; -- opposed to sour and bitter; as, a sweet beverage; sweet fruits; s…
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1.
Having an agreeable taste or flavor such as that of sugar; saccharine; -- opposed to sour and bitter; as, a sweet beverage; sweet fruits; sweet oranges.
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2.
Pleasing to the smell; fragrant; redolent; balmy; as, a sweet rose; sweet odor; sweet incense.“The breath of these flowers is sweet to me.” — Longfellow.
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3.
Pleasing to the ear; soft; melodious; harmonious; as, the sweet notes of a flute or an organ; sweet music; a sweet voice; a sweet singer.“To make his English sweet upon his tongue.” — Chaucer.“A voice sweet, tremulous, but powerful.” — Hawthorne.
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4.
Pleasing to the eye; beautiful; mild and attractive; fair; as, a sweet face; a sweet color or complexion.“Sweet interchange Of hill and valley, rivers, woods, and plains.” — Milton.
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5.
Fresh; not salt or brackish; as, sweet water.
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6.
Not changed from a sound or wholesome state. Specifically: (a) Not sour; as, sweet milk or bread. (b) Not state; not putrescent or putrid; not rancid; as, sweet butter; sweet meat or fish.
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7.
Plaesing to the mind; mild; gentle; calm; amiable; winning; presuasive; as, sweet manners.“Canst thou bind the sweet influence of Pleiades?” — Job xxxviii. 31.“Mildness and sweet reasonableness is the one established rule of Christian working.” — M. Arnold.
Phrases & compounds
Sweet alyssum —
See Alyssum.
Sweet apple —
Any apple of sweet flavor.
Sweet bay —
The laurel (Laurus nobilis).
Sweet calabash —
a plant of the genus Passiflora (Passiflora maliformis) growing in the West Indies, and producing a roundish, edible fruit, the size of an apple.
Sweet cicely —
Either of the North American plants of the umbelliferous genus Osmorrhiza having aromatic roots and seeds, and white flowers.
Sweet calamus —
Same as Sweet flag, below.
Sweet Cistus —
an evergreen shrub (Cistus Ladanum) from which the gum ladanum is obtained.
Sweet clover —
See Melilot.
Sweet coltsfoot —
a kind of butterbur (Petasites sagittata) found in Western North America.
Sweet corn —
a variety of the maize of a sweet taste. See the Note under Corn.
Sweet fern —
a small North American shrub (Comptonia asplenifolia syn. Myrica asplenifolia) having sweet-scented or aromatic leaves resembling fern leaves.
Sweet flag —
an endogenous plant (Acorus Calamus) having long flaglike leaves and a rootstock of a pungent aromatic taste. It is found in wet places in Europe and America. See Calamus, 2.
Sweet gale —
a shrub (Myrica Gale) having bitter fragrant leaves; -- also called sweet willow, and Dutch myrtle. See 5th Gale.
Sweet grass —
holy, or Seneca, grass.
Sweet gum —
an American tree (Liquidambar styraciflua). See Liquidambar.
Sweet herbs —
fragrant herbs cultivated for culinary purposes.
Sweet John —
a variety of the sweet William.
Sweet leaf —
horse sugar. See under Horse.
Sweet marjoram —
See Marjoram.
Sweet marten —
the pine marten.
Sweet maudlin —
a composite plant (Achillea Ageratum) allied to milfoil.
Sweet oil —
olive oil.
Sweet pea —
See under Pea.
Sweet potato —
See under Potato.
Sweet rush —
sweet flag.
Sweet sultan —
an annual composite plant (Centaurea moschata), also, the yellow-flowered (Centaurea odorata); -- called also sultan flower.
Sweet tooth —
an especial fondness for sweet things or for sweetmeats.
Sweet William —
A species of pink (Dianthus barbatus) of many varieties.
Sweet willow —
sweet gale.
To be sweet on —
to have a particular fondness for, or special interest in, as a young man for a young woman.
Syn.
Sugary; saccharine; dulcet; luscious.