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Glite Dictionary
butterscotch

butterscotch

18 2.6
A sweet hard candy made from butter and brown sugar
  • noun
  • /ˈbʌtərˌskɑtʃ/
translation icon : caramelo de mantequilla
  • In front of the photographs were bright color snapshots of a cocker spaniel with butterscotch fur and watery eyes.

Vienna's Originals Hot candy is a delicious butterscotch, the center of which is a gaping void.

Examples

  • All you need is peanut butter or butterscotch chips, chocolate chips, and sprinkles.

    Blog text (23)

  • Homemade butterscotch sauce.

    S.W.A.T.: Firefight (2011)

  • The butterscotch one is good.

    Compliance (2012)

  • - Chocolate chip or butterscotch?

    There's Something About Mary (1998)

  • It's sweet, but we wanted more butterscotch, more toffee notes.

  • The children ordered large butterscotch sundaes and polished them off within a few minutes.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • Best food lately: butterscotch blondies from a bake sale that my mom magically appeared with.

    Blog text (18)

  • In a small saucepan, combine peanut butter, chocolate morsels, and butterscotch morsels.

    Blog text (7)

  • They are butterscotch chips, peanut butter and chow Mein noodles.

  • She enjoyed a piece of butterscotch candy after dinner.

Synonyms

candy
vsbutterscotch
  • US
863 1.0

A small sweet made from sugar, often with chocolate or nuts

is a specific hard brittle sweet made with butter and brown sugar
hard candy
vsbutterscotch
  • US
7 1.0

A small sweet made from sugar that you suck rather than chew

is made specifically from butter and brown sugar for its buttery flavor
Scotch kiss
vsbutterscotch
  • UK
9.8

A small butterscotch candy shaped like a kiss with a soft marshmallow center

is the plain flavored brittle candy rather than a shaped or filled version

Surface Forms

butterscotch singular
butterscotches plural

Morphology

butterscotch = butter + scotch (semi-transparent) = butter + scotch

The component 'butter' is transparent, but 'scotch' is not a productive, clearly meaningful element for many learners and the compound denotes a specific confection.

Etymology

Butterscotch is made of two parts: butter, which you know, and scotch. A helpful idea is that scotch may have once meant 'to cut' or be like 'scorch' meaning 'to burn', so the name brings to mind butter and sugar that are cooked and cut into pieces. That's why butterscotch is a sweet made from butter and brown sugar.