long sweetening

English

Noun

long sweetening (uncountable)

1. (Southern US, Midland US) A viscous, syrupy sweetener, generally molasses, but sometimes table syrup.
   • 1822, John Davis, The American Mariners: Or, The Atlantic Voyage. A Moral Poem ..., US: Brodie and Dowding, page 162, lines 332-3:

     Long Sweetening is its just and proper name, but by Molasses better known to fame.

   • 1959, Leonard W. Roberts, “Jim Couch, His Family Story”, in Up Cutshin & down Greasy: folkways of a Kentucky mountain family, page 8:

     Made our molasses into long sweetening and tapped the sugartrees for short sweetening.

   • 1974, John Quincy Wolf, Life in the Leatherwoods:

     Mr. Hurst made the best of the situation and drank his molasses-sweetened coffee with seeming relish, as though he had been raised on long sweetening.

   • 1989, Lee Smith, Fair and Tender Ladies:

     Reach me some of that long sweetening, honey, she'd say at the breakfast table.

See also

• short sweetening