n 1  :  a sweet crystallizable substance that consists chiefly of sucrose, is colorless or white when pure and tending to brown when less refined, is obtained commercially from sugarcane or sugar beet and less extensively from sorghum, maples, and palms, and is important as a source of dietary carbohydrate and as a sweetener and preservative for other foods and for drugs and in the chemical industry as an intermediate  2  :  any of various water-soluble compounds that vary widely in sweetness and comprise the oligosaccharides including sucrose .
 
 
 
Similar sounding terms:  sacra   scar   scour  screw 
 
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