sugar loaf
- noun
- /ˈʃʊɡər loʊf/
- Archaic
:
pan de azúcar
- Look at that giant sugar loaf on the shelf!
Examples
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Unlike modern granulated sugar, a sugar loaf was shaped like a tall cone and wrapped in blue paper.
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In the eighteenth century, households would buy a sugar loaf and break it into pieces for use.
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The museum displayed an old sugar loaf along with antique kitchen tools.
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The baker displayed a beautiful sugar loaf in the window.
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The baker presented a beautiful sugar loaf at the display window, attracting many customers.
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In traditional recipes, a sugar loaf is often used to sweeten tea or coffee.
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During the festival, vendors sold sugar loaves shaped like various animals and figures.
Synonyms
1
9.6
A large cone of hard white sugar sold in the past
A large hard block of sugar often shaped like a cone that people break into pieces at home
How Big
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a large conical mass of refined sugar' is directly derivable from combining 'sugar' with 'loaf', since 'loaf' denotes a shaped mass (as in a loaf of bread) and so signals a loaf-shaped block of sugar. This compositional pattern is cross-linguistically common (e.g. French 'pain de sucre') and, despite being somewhat historical/less common today, would be understandable to a B1 learner who knows both constituent words.
Etymology
Sugar loaf comes from the old way refined sugar was sold as a hard, cone-shaped loaf. People would break pieces off to use, so the name now means 'a large, solid cone of sugar'.