molasses

Cane juice being boiled to produce molasses

From Portuguese melaços or Spanish melazos, from Late Latin mellacium (“must, honey-sweet thing”), from mel (“honey”) + -āceus (“-aceous”) + -ium, q.v. Some alternative forms derived or influenced by Spanish melaza and French mélasse, conjectured to derive from unattested Late Latin mellacea, from mel + -ācea.

• mollasses, malasses, merlaasses, molassey, molassy, melasus, molassos, malassoes, malassos, molossus, melasses, mallassus, malosses, mellasses, milasses, molassers, molossoes, molossos, mullasses, molosses, melossus, mollossus, molossas, molases, mellosses, moloses, merlassers, millasses, molassisis

• (General American) IPA^(key): [məˈlæ.sɪz], [mɵˈlæ.sɪz]

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): [məˈlæ.sɪz], /məʊˈlasɪz/, /məˈlasɪz/
• (Scots) IPA^(key): /məˈlasɪz/
• Rhymes: -æsɪz

molasses (usually uncountable, singular molass)

1. A thick, sweet syrup drained from sugarcane, especially (Canada, US) the still thicker and sweeter syrup produced by boiling down raw molasses.
   • 1907 February 2, The Chronicle, Adelaide, page 50, column 2:

     Well, we had our breakfast of ship's bread and molasses, washed down with cannikins of something liquid - but not lovely.

   • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter V, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

     When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose. And the queerer the cure for those ailings the bigger the attraction. A place like the Right Livers' Rest was bound to draw freaks, same as molasses draws flies.

2. (US) Any similarly thick and sweet syrup produced by boiling down fruit juices, tree saps, etc., especially concentrated maple syrup.
   • 1777 Sept. 13, Manessah Cutler, Journal, s.v.:

     Boiled some cornstalk juice into molasses.

3. (figuratively) Anything considered figuratively sweet, especially sweet words.

   He really poured on the molasses, charming his audience and changing more than a few votes.

   • 1925, Theodore Dreiser, An American Tragedy, volume I, page 127:

     ‘You're the cutest thing here,’ whispered Clyde, hugging her fondly.
     ‘Gee, but you can pour on the molasses, kid, when you want to,’ she called out loud.

   • 1972 Nov. 26, New York Times Book Review, p. 1:

     ...the mournful molasses of his prose...

4. (figuratively) Something which moves or works extremely slowly.
   • 1990, Norman Schreiber, Your Home Office, New York, N.Y.: Perennial Library, →ISBN, page 91:

     Though faster than typing, the daisy wheel is molasses compared to dot matrix printers.

   • 2022, Julia Glass, Vigil Harbor, New York, N.Y.: Pantheon Books, →ISBN, page 161:

     Of course, time was molasses in the cold months that bracketed that very long year; time was monotony. When all days are the same, memory caves in on itself.

   • 2023 March 3, Shira Ovide, “Four mistakes you’re making that slow down your internet”, in The Washington Post‎, Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 3 March 2023:

     It's worthwhile starting with the lowest-tier plan from your provider. If your internet is molasses, then you might consider an upgrade.

5. (Scotland, obsolete) plural of molass: whiskey made from molasses.
6. (Scotland, rare, obsolete) Synonym of molass: whiskey made from molasses.

• Likely adopted in plural form because of its origin in pieces left over from sugar processing, although now usually construed as a singular or uncountable liquid except in some southern and southern-influenced dialects of American English.

• (concentrated sugarcane syrup): long sweetening, treacle, theriac, sorghum syrup, cane syrup
• (things considered figuratively sweet): See sugar and honey

• (any sweet concentrated syrup): maple syrup

molasses

1. (obsolete) third-person singular simple present indicative of molass: becomes drunk from molass.

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /məˈlæsɪz/, /məˈlɑsɪz/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /məʊlasɪz/, /məˈlasɪz/

molasses

1. (geology) plural of molasse

• “molasses, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 2022.
• “molass, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 2022.
• “† molass, v.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 2019.
• “molasse, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 2022.
• “molasses”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “molasses”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.