Meaning & use
sugar cube
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountable
A small hard block of white or brown sugar, usually shaped like a cube, used to sweeten drinks.
Grammar: Countable: you can say a sugar cube, two sugar cubes, some sugar cubes.
Patterns
- a sugar cube
- two sugar cubes
- put a sugar cube in something
He dropped a sugar cube into his coffee and stirred it.
The cafe gives you two sugar cubes with every cup of tea.
She prefers brown sugar cubes because they taste slightly richer.
nouncountable
A single cube of sugar used as a rough unit when talking about how sweet a drink is.
Grammar: Often used with numbers to say how much sugar someone takes: one sugar cube, no sugar cubes.
Patterns
- take one sugar cube
- with two sugar cubes
- how many sugar cubes
I take my tea with one sugar cube, please.
He asked how many sugar cubes she wanted in her coffee.
Cutting down from three sugar cubes to one made a big difference for him.
Word forms
| plural | sugar cubes |
|---|
Common combinations
- drop a sugar cube into
- She dropped a sugar cube into the hot tea.
- two sugar cubes
- The recipe calls for two sugar cubes and a little cream.
- brown sugar cubes
- Brown sugar cubes are often served with strong coffee.
- one sugar cube
- He always takes one sugar cube in his espresso.
- a bowl of sugar cubes
- There was a small bowl of sugar cubes on the table.
Synonyms and how they differ
- lump of sugar
- A more general phrase for a piece of sugar; it can be any rough shape, not necessarily a neat cube.
- sugar lump
- Common in British English for the same thing, though it can also be a less regular chunk of sugar.
Word family
- sugar noun
- The sweet substance that sugar cubes are made from.
- sugary adjective
- Containing a lot of sugar or tasting very sweet.
Commonly confused: sugar cube or sugar kube? sugar cube or ice cube?
sugar cube vs sugar kube
A misspelling of sugar cube. The correct spelling of the second word is 'cube' with a c, not 'kube'.
sugar cube vs ice cube
An ice cube is a frozen block of water, not sugar; both are small cubes you put in drinks, so they are easy to mix up.
Practice
She takes her coffee with two ______.
Choose one answer.
'Two' needs the plural countable form, so 'sugar cubes' is correct. 'Sugar cube' is singular and would need 'a' or 'one', and 'sugars cube' and 'sugar cube's' are not valid forms.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “sugar cube”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.