Meaning & use
boiled sweet
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Meaning
nouncountableBritish
A small hard candy made by boiling sugar syrup until it sets, usually fruit or mint flavored, that you suck slowly.
Grammar: Countable: a boiled sweet, a bag of boiled sweets.
Patterns
- suck a boiled sweet
- a bag of boiled sweets
My grandmother always kept a jar of boiled sweets by her chair.
He sucked a boiled sweet to soothe his sore throat.
The shop sells old-fashioned boiled sweets in paper bags.
Word forms
| plural | boiled sweets |
|---|
Common combinations
- suck a boiled sweet
- She sucked a boiled sweet to stop herself coughing.
- jar of boiled sweets
- There was a jar of boiled sweets on the counter.
- fruity boiled sweet
- The fruity boiled sweet tasted of strawberries.
- bag of boiled sweets
- He bought a bag of boiled sweets for the long drive.
- peppermint boiled sweet
- A peppermint boiled sweet helped on the train.
Synonyms and how they differ
- hard candy
- Hard candy is the American equivalent and is the word to use outside Britain.
- humbug
- A humbug is one specific kind of boiled sweet, striped and minty, so it is narrower in meaning.
- lozenge
- A lozenge is similar in texture but is meant to relieve a sore throat rather than be eaten as a treat.
- lollipop
- A lollipop is a boiled sweet on a stick, so it has the same texture but a different shape.
Word family
Commonly confused: boiled sweet or boiled egg?
boiled sweet vs boiled egg
A boiled egg is food cooked in water, whereas a boiled sweet is a hard sugar candy; the shared word 'boiled' refers to how each is made.
Practice
A British shopkeeper offers you a boiled sweet. What are you being offered?
Choose one answer.
A boiled sweet is a hard sugar candy. A chewy toffee is tempting because it is also a candy, but it is soft rather than boiled until hard.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “boiled sweet”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.