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.
1838 October,Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Reaper and the Flowers”, inVoices of the Night, Cambridge, Mass.:[…] John Owen, published1839,→OCLC,page 8:
Though the breath of these flowers issweet to me, / I will give them all back again.
There's something tragic, but almost pure / Think I could love you, but I'm not sure / There's something wholesome, there's somethingsweet / Tucked in your eyes that I'd love to meet
Her crew knew that deep in her heart beat engines fit and able to push her blunt old nose ahead at asweet fourteen knots, come Hell or high water.
14 November 2014, Steven Haliday,Scotland 1-0 Republic of Ireland: Maloney the hero
GORDON Strachan enjoyed thesweetest 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.
1627,Francis Bacon, “Sylva Sylvarum: or A Natural History”, inThe Works of Francis Bacon, published1826, page66:
The white of an egg, or blood mingled with salt water, doth gather the saltness and maketh the watersweeter; this may be by adhesion.
1821, Robert Thomas,The modern practice of physic, page713:
Nothing has been found so effectual for preserving watersweet at sea, during long voyages, as charring the insides of the casks well before they are filled.
"You think that I'll take anything." "I know you will,sweet..." "There wasn't going to be any of that. You promised there wouldn't be." "Well, there is now," she said sweetly.
Good evening, mysweet.
(obsolete) That which is sweet or pleasant in odour; aperfume.
1667,John Milton, “Book V”, inParadise Lost.[…], London:[…] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker[…];[a]nd by Robert Boulter[…];[a]nd Matthias Walker,[…],→OCLC; republished asParadise Lost in Ten Books:[…], London: Basil Montagu Pickering[…],1873,→OCLC:
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions atWiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
It might also be given in the form of a mixture — the drug being insoluble in a watery menstruum — suspended by the aid of mucilage andsweeted by any of the various flavoring syrups.
1997, Morag Styles,From the Garden to the Street,→ISBN:
Bring me now where the warm wind blows, where the grasses sigh, where the sweet-tongued blossom flowers; where the shower, fan soft like a fishermans net thrown through thesweeted air.
2012, Keith Ringkamp,PATIENCE WORTH: A Balm for Every Ill,→ISBN, page34:
Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828), William Barnes, editor,A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published1867,page94
