molasses

Etymology 1

being boiled to produce molasses]] From Portuguese melaços or Spanish melazos, from Late Latin mellacium (“must, honey-sweet thing”), from mel (“honey”) + -āceus (“-aceous”) + -ium, q.v. Some alternative forms derived or influenced by Spanish melaza and French mélasse, conjectured to derive from unattested Late Latin mellacea, from mel + -ācea.

noun

1. A thick, sweet syrup drained from sugarcane, especially (Canada, US) the still thicker and sweeter syrup produced by boiling down raw molasses.
   Well, we had our breakfast of ship's bread and molasses, washed down with cannikins of something liquid - but not lovely. 2 Feb 1907, The Chronicle, Adelaide, page 50, column 2
   When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose. And the queerer the cure for those ailings the bigger the attraction. A place like the Right Livers' Rest was bound to draw freaks, same as molasses draws flies. 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 5, in Mr. Pratt's Patients
2. (US) Any similarly thick and sweet syrup produced by boiling down fruit juices, tree saps, etc., especially concentrated maple syrup.
   Boiled some cornstalk juice into molasses. 1777 Sept. 13, Manessah Cutler, Journal, s.v.
3. (figurative) Anything considered figuratively sweet, especially sweet words.
   ‘You're the cutest thing here,’ whispered Clyde, hugging her fondly. ‘Gee, but you can pour on the molasses, kid, when you want to,’ she called out loud. 1925, Theodore Dreiser, An American Tragedy, volume I, page 127
   ...the mournful molasses of his prose... 1972 Nov. 26, New York Times Book Review, p. 1
   He really poured on the molasses, charming his audience and changing more than a few votes.
4. (Scotland, obsolete) plural of molass: whiskey made from molasses.
5. (Scotland, rare, obsolete) Synonym of molass: whiskey made from molasses.

verb

1. (obsolete) third-person singular simple present indicative of molass">molass: becomes drunk from molass">molass.

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

noun

1. (geology) plural of molasse