sweet – English adjective declension

English adjective forms of sweet

Adjective: sweet

Comparison Forms

Synthetic

Comparativesweeter
Superlativesweetest

Perifrastic

Sample Sentences

  • a sweet apple
  • A few types of molecules get sensed by receptors on the tongue. Protons coming off of acids ping receptors for "sour." Sugars get received as "sweet." Bitter, salty, and the proteinaceous flavor umami all set off their own neural cascades. [2018 May 16, Adam Rogers, “The Fundamental Nihilism of Yanny vs. Laurel”, in Wired:]
  • Sweet wines are better dessert wines.
  • sweet butter
  • a sweet scent
  • Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me, / I will give them all back again. [1838 October, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Reaper and the Flowers”, in Voices of the Night, Cambridge, Mass.: […] John Owen, published 1839, →OCLC, page 8:]
  • sweet milk
  • a sweet tune
  • Smooth jazz music has sweet drum beats and cymbals!
  • The cicale above in the lime, / And the lizards below in the grass, / Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was, / Listening to my sweet pipings. [a. 1823 (date written), Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Hymn of Pan”, in Mary W[ollstonecraft] Shelley, editor, Posthumous Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley, London: […] [C. H. Reynell] for John and Henry L[eigh] Hunt, […], published 1824, →OCLC, page 169:]
  • a voice sweet, tremulous, but powerful [1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Ticknor and Fields, page 135:]
  • a sweet child
  • It was sweet of her to send some roses for her unwell grandmother.
  • You're so sweet!
  • There's something tragic, but almost pure / Think I could love you, but I'm not sure / There's something wholesome, there's something sweet / Tucked in your eyes that I'd love to meet [2017 April 13, Mitchy Collins, Samantha Derosa, Christian Medice, “Broken”, in Finding It Hard to Smile, performed by Lovelytheband:]
  • It was sweet of him to help out.
  • sweet gas
  • sweet soil
  • sweet crude oil
  • The new Lexus was a sweet birthday gift.
  • Her crew knew that deep in her heart beat engines fit and able to push her blunt old nose ahead at a sweet fourteen knots, come Hell or high water. [1932, Delos W. Lovelace, King Kong, published 1965, page 1:]
  • 14 November 2014, Steven Haliday, Scotland 1-0 Republic of Ireland: Maloney the hero
  • GORDON Strachan enjoyed the sweetest of his 16 matches in charge of Scotland so far as his team enhanced their prospects of Euro 2016 qualification with a crucial and deserved victory over Republic of Ireland.
  • "Visit in two days though," said Tommo. "Hang in there mate, got a joey coming, we'll be sweet then." [2012, John Hoskison, Inside: One Man's Experience of Prison:]
  • The attraction was mutual and instant; they were sweet on one another from first sight.
  • sweet water
  • The white of an egg, or blood mingled with salt water, doth gather the saltness and maketh the water sweeter; this may be by adhesion. [1627, Francis Bacon, “Sylva Sylvarum: or A Natural History”, in The Works of Francis Bacon, published 1826, page 66:]
  • Nothing has been found so effectual for preserving water sweet at sea, during long voyages, as charring the insides of the casks well before they are filled. [1821, Robert Thomas, The modern practice of physic, page 713:]
  • a sweet face
  • a sweet colour or complexion
  • Sweet interchange / Of hill and valley, rivers, woods, and plains. [1667, John Milton, Paradise lost (source), Samuel Simmons, page 278]
  • For someone who hadn't seen her only sister in over twenty years, Alice sure took her sweet time. [2014, Rexanne Becnel, Leaving L.A., page 12:]

Adjectives inflected like sweet

sallow, smooth, slight, sleigh, sordid, somber, shweet, shrill, shrewd, yellow, yaller, hard knock, DRY, Greek, cut short, unquiet, unclean, indiscreet, chipper, straicht, etc. (List truncated at 20 adjectives)

Etymology

1. Etymology tree
2. Proto-Indo-European *sweh₂d-
3. Proto-Indo-European *-us
4. Proto-Indo-European *swéh₂dus
5. Proto-Germanic *swōtuz
6. Proto-Indo-European *-yos
7. Proto-Indo-European *-yós
8. Proto-Germanic *-jaz
9. Proto-West Germanic *-ī
10. Proto-West Germanic *swōtī
11. Old English swēte
12. Middle English swete
13. English sweet
14. From Middle English soot, sweete, swete, swoote, from Old English swēte, swoete, swōt, swœ̄te (“sweet”), from Proto-West Germanic *swōtī, from Proto-Germanic *swōtuz (“sweet”), from Proto-Indo-European *swéh₂dus (“sweet”), from *sweh₂d- (“sweet”) + *-us.
15. Cognates
16. Cognate with Yola sweet (“sweet”), Saterland Frisian swäit (“sweet”), West Frisian swiet (“sweet”), Alemannic German süeß (“sweet”), Bavarian siaß (“sweet; cute”), Central Franconian söß (“sweet”), Dutch zoet (“sweet”), German süss, süß (“sweet; cute”), Limburgish söüt (“sweet; cute”), Low German seut, sööt (“sweet”), Luxembourgish séiss (“sweet”), Vilamovian ziss (“sweet”), Yiddish זיס (zis, “sweet; cute”), Danish sød (“sweet; cute, pretty”), Faroese søtur (“sweet”), Icelandic sætur (“sweet; cute, pretty”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk søt (“sweet; cute”), Swedish söt (“sweet; cute”); also Latin suāvis (“delicious, pleasant, sweet”), Ancient Greek ἡδύς (hēdús, “sweet; pleasant; glad, pleased”), Albanian shije (“flavour, taste”), Lithuanian sūdyti (“to add salt; to brine, souse”), Armenian քաղցր (kʻaġcʻr, “sweet”), Tocharian A swār (“sweet”), Tocharian B swāre (“sweet, tender”), Sanskrit स्वादु (svādú, “delicious, palatable, savoury, sweet, tasty; dainty, delicate”). Doublet of suave. See: Dutch Adjectives 'zoet', German Adjectives 'süss', Swedish Adjectives 'söt', Latin Adjectives 'suāvis'.

Verbs referencing "sweet"

German Adjectives süß, Swedish Adjectives söt.