2. (auctioneers').—A runner-up (q.v.) of prices; a bonnet (q.v.)
3. (common).—In pl. = the lips. To fake the sweeteners = to kiss.
4. (old).—'One who decoys persons to game' (Bailey). Also sweeten, verb (B. E. and Grose) = to decoy, to draw in.
Sweetheart, etc., subs. (old colloquial
and literary).—1. A mistress,
pour le bon motif; and (2)
see quots. Also variants: sweet,
sweeting, sweetkins, sweet-lips,
etc. Also sweetkin, adj.
= delicate, dainty; and sweet
on = in love with; partial to.
c.1534. Milner of Abington [Hazlitt. Early Pop. Poet., iii. 113]. Now, I pray you, my lemman free, A gowne cloath then buie you me . . . By Jesu, he saide, my sweeting, I have but three shylling.
1552. Huloet, Abecdarium, s.v. Darlynge, a wanton terme used in veneriall speach, as be these: honycombe, pyggisnye, swetehert, true love.
1593. Nashe, Choise of Valentynes, 89. Sweete heart, . . ., but thy self, true lover I haue none . . . With that she wanton faints, and falle's vpon hir bedd.
c.1696. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew . . . To be sweet on, cant, to coakse, wheedle, entice or allure.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v. Sweet-Heart . . . a girl's lover or a man's mistress. Ibid. s.v. Sweetners . . . To be sweet upon; to coax, wheedle, court or allure. He seemed sweet upon that wench; he seemed to court that girl.
1823. Bee, Dict. Turf, s.v. Sweet (to be)—to talk kind, conciliating to the other sex.
1865. Dickens, Mutual Friend, iv. 15. Missis is sweet enough on you, Master, to sell herself up, slap, to get you out of trouble.
1895. Oppenheim, Peer and the Woman, 11. ii. I don't know that we should have stopped so long, only Brown's rather sweet on the place.
Sweetheart and bag-pudding! phr. (old: Ray).—Said of a girl got with child.
1608. Day, Humour out of Breath, ii. 1. Farewell, sweet heart.—God a mercy, bag-pudding.
Sweeties, subs. pl. (common).—Sweetmeats:
also sweet-stuff.
d.1758. Ramsay, Poems, 11. 547. Sweeties to bestow on lasses.
1851-61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab., 1. 216. The sweet-stuff maker (I never heard them called confectioners) bought his 'paper' at the stationer's, or the old book-shops.
1863. Thackeray, Roundabout Papers, x. Instead of finding bonbons or sweeties in the packets which we pluck off the boughs, we find enclosed Mr. Carnifex's review of the quarter's meat.
Sweet-lips, subs. phr. (common).—1.
An epicure; a glutton.
2. See Sweetheart.
Sweet-meat, subs. phr. (venery).—1.
The penis: see Prick.
Also (2) a kept mistress of tender
years.
Sweet meat must have sour sauce, phr. (old).—See quot. It. Se à mangiate le candele ora caga gli stoppini.
1726. Bailey, Eng. Dict. s.v. Sweet . . . After sweet meat comes sour sauce . . . an excellent monition to temperance and sobriety.
Sweet-pea, subs. (women's).—Urination:
spec. in the open air.
Hence, to plant (or do) a
sweet pea = to piss (q.v.): cf.
to pluck a rose. Also in
Conundrums: 'What's the sweetest
flower in the nursery?' or
'What flower does a woman like
after a long walk?' Ans. A
sweet-pea.
