sugaring

Pluralsugarings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of sugar.

   He stood at the counter sugaring the berries one bowl at a time.

   The pastry chef was sugaring the dough when the oven timer rang.

   Note

   The verb form carries every sense of sugar with it: sweetening food, softening something unpleasant, flattering a person, or painting trees with sugar to catch moths. In Canadian and US maple making it pairs with off, sugaring off being the final boil before the syrup crystallizes. With a direct object (sugaring the berries) it is the verb. With of, or in the plural sugarings, it has become the noun for the act.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act of applying sugar to a food or surface.

   A final sugaring of the pastries finished off the dessert table.

   The sugaring of the cranberries left each one with a frosted look.

   Similardusting

3. 3
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A cosmetic method of removing body hair by applying and peeling off a sugar-based paste, similar to waxing.

   The esthetician used sugaring to remove the fine hair along her upper lip.

   Sugaring leaves less redness than hot wax for most of her clients.

   Note

   Hair removal is the one setting where sugaring is always measured against waxing. Its other name, Persian waxing, borrows that rival's word even though the paste is sugar. Use it as a countable noun for a single treatment (she booked a sugaring before the trip). Use it as an uncountable noun for the method itself, as in sugaring versus waxing.

4. 4
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The making or processing of sugar from crops such as cane or beet.

   Sugaring at the mill runs around the clock during cane season.

   The family has done its own maple sugaring for three generations.

   Note

   The collocation to know is maple sugaring, the work of boiling maple sap down to sugar. It has long been an important industry in Vermont. Its last stage has a regional verb of its own, sugaring off, explained under the verb form. Without a qualifier the noun can mean cane or beet processing too, so add maple when that is what you mean.

5. 5
   noununcountable

   Being in a romantic relationship with an older person as a sugar baby, in return for money or gifts.

   Sugaring helped her cover rent during a tough year.

   He got into sugaring through a friend who introduced him to a wealthy patron.

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