sweet-tasting

Meaning

1. 1adjectivecomparable

   Having a flavor that is pleasantly sugary or like honey or ripe fruit.

   Grammar: Can come before a noun or after be: a sweet-tasting grape, or the juice is sweet-tasting; the comparative is sweeter-tasting.

   Patterns

   • a sweet-tasting something
   • be sweet-tasting

   The grapes were small but surprisingly sweet-tasting.

   Some medicines for children are made sweet-tasting so they are easier to swallow.

   Maple sap is a thin, sweet-tasting liquid that is boiled down into syrup.

Common combinations

sweet-tasting fruit

Ripe mangoes are among the most sweet-tasting fruit you can buy.

sweet-tasting syrup

She poured a sweet-tasting syrup over the pancakes.

naturally sweet-tasting

Carrots are naturally sweet-tasting when roasted.

sweet-tasting nectar

Hummingbirds feed on sweet-tasting nectar from tubular flowers.

slightly sweet-tasting

The broth was slightly sweet-tasting because of the onions.

Synonyms and how they differ

sugary

Sugary usually means full of sugar and can sound critical, while sweet-tasting only reports the flavor.

sweet

Sweet is the shorter, more general word; sweet-tasting is useful when you want to stress the flavor in contrast to smell, look, or sound.

honeyed

Honeyed is more poetic and suggests the smooth richness of honey.

saccharine

Saccharine can describe an artificial or sickly sweetness and is often disapproving, unlike the neutral sweet-tasting.

Opposites

Word family

sweet adjective

having a sugary taste

sweetness noun

the quality of tasting sweet

sweeten verb

to make something sweeter

sweetener noun

a substance used to add sweetness

sweetly adverb

in a sweet or gentle way

Commonly confused: sweet-tasting or sweetened? sweet-tasting or sweet-smelling?

Practice

Make it your own

Write a sentence using “sweet-tasting”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.

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