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sorghum molasses

sorghum molasses

7.8
A thick sweet syrup made from the juice of a tall plant like corn used like sugar
  • noun
  • /ˈsɔrɡəm məˈlæsɪz/
translation icon : melaza de sorgo
  • During breakfast, they spread sorghum molasses on their biscuits for a delicious treat.

Examples

  • He had to have three kinds of meat, scratch biscuits and gravy, grits, eggs, fried potatoes, cornbread, buttermilk, and sorghum molasses every morning.

    Fiction book (1991)
  • It was a gallon bucket of fresh homemade sorghum molasses, and he knew the answer at once, long before she finished speaking: "Somebody from Mr. Edmond's place sent it to you."

    Fiction book (1999)
  • In all those thirty-four years of marriage, there was something wrong every blessed morning of the world: the eggs were too done, the cornbread was too soggy, the damned sorghum molasses that I bought in a jar at Alford's store was too slow or too runny, and even that was my fault.

    Fiction book (1991)
  • She drizzled sorghum molasses over her warm pancakes as a natural sweetener.

  • The recipe called for sorghum molasses to give the cookies a rich, sweet flavor.

Synonyms

sorghum
vssorghum molasses
1 7.7

A sweet syrup made from the juice of a tall grain plant used for sweetening and cooking

is a thicker sweet syrup used as a spread rather than only for cooking

How Sweet

honey
305 1.0
corn syrup
  • US
22 2.3
maple syrup
36 1.0
sorghum molasses
7.8
blackstrap
1 7.9

Surface Forms

Morphology

sorghum + molasses

The meaning 'a thick, sweet syrup made from the juice of sweet sorghum' is directly and transparently derivable from 'sorghum' (the plant) + 'molasses' (a dark syrup): it simply names molasses made from sorghum. This noun–noun composition indicating source is a common, compositional pattern in English (and many languages), so learners who know both constituents will understand it.

Etymology

Sorghum molasses comes from a simple farm process: people squeeze the stalks of the plant sorghum to get juice and boil it until it becomes thick and dark like molasses. That's why the name means a 'syrup' used as a 'sweetener' made from sorghum.