Definition of "honey"

The physical properties of the different honeys, color, granulation, aroma, flavor, etc., are indicated in the table only in a very general way.

1908, United States. Bureau of Chemistry, Bulletin‎, numbers 110-114

If two of the California honeys, western hyssop and fleabane, having a positive polarization at 200 C. are disregarded, then the remaining...

1949, Roy A. Grout, editor, The Hive and the Honey Bee‎

Eucalyptus honeys could be characterized based on seven volatile compounds, whereas lavender honeys had only five...

2011, Stephen Taylor, Advances in Food and Nutrition Research‎, volume 62

O my love, my wife! / Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath / Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.

c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act V, scene iii], lines 91–93

the honey of his language

1613 (date written), William Shakespeare, [John Fletcher], “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act III, scene ii]

"So far, so good... are you doing okay?" "Flying... is awesome!" "Focus, honey."

2013 July 30, Dan Shive, El Goonish Shive (webcomic), Comic for Tuesday, Jul 30, 2013

College was wild. I was like a happy little white kid playing in a sandbox full of toys. Honeys, basketball, music, I indulged in all of that shit to the max. And oh yeah. I went to a couple of classes too. I wasn't totally ass-out stupid.

2006, Noire [pseudonym], Thug-A-Licious: An Urban Erotic Tale, New York, N.Y.: One World/Ballantine Books, page 130

So work the honey-bees, / Creatures that by a rule in nature teach / The act of order to a peopled kingdom.

1599, William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene ii]

Dim as the forming of / Dew in the warming of / Moonlight, they light on the petals; / All is revealed to them; / All!—from the sunniest / Tips to the honiest / Heart, whence they yield to them / Spice, through the darkness that settles.

1907, Madison Cawein, “One Day and Another: A Lyrical Eclogue”, in The Poems of Madison Cawein, volumes II (New World Idylls and Poems of Love), Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, page 8

“I say,” it said, “don’t gran’ma make the hunkiest frosted cookies, though?” / “My, yes, an’ gran’pa’s bees the honiest honey?” flashed back from Station Mary.

1911 January 3, “[The Children’s Corner] Wireless Telegraphy”, in The Inglenook, volume XIII, number 1, Elgin, Ill.: Brethren Publishing House, page 19, column 1

moll / Even to the least detail of love and duty / To win the dalliance of her majesty. / king hamlet / Dalliance? / moll / ’T is the honiest word that sticks / On my lord Osric’s tongue, like a dayfly’s wing / On a toad’s tongue-tip.

1950, Percy MacKaye, The Mystery Of Hamlet, King of Denmark, or What We Will: A Tetralogy by Percy MacKaye, in Prologue to The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke, by William Shakespeare, London: The Bodley Head, published 1952, page 397

Its perfume is variously described as ‘divine’ and reminiscent of nuts. Of grapes it is the grapiest; of honey the honiest.

1962, Harper’s Bazaar, volume 95, page 204

The Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad speaks of the ātman as the honey (madhu) and as the “honiest” of all the honeys.

1985, P.T. Raju, Structural Depths of Indian Thought, Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, pages 407–408

But he answered the question with the honiest—Bohemian honey—of smiles: […]

1876, Stephen J[oseph] Mac Kenna, Handfast to Strangers: A Novel, volume III, London: Chapman and Hall, […], page 137

But he suddenly changed his mind and came back. “Just listen, Lantier,” he said, in the honeyest of tones, “I want a lobster painted. […]”[original: Mais il se ravisa et revint dire, de son air bonhomme : « Écoutez donc Lantier, j’ai besoin d’un homard… […] »]

1886, Émile Zola, unknown translator, chapter II, in His Masterpiece? (L’Œuvre.) Or, Claude Lantier’s Struggle for Fame. A Realistic Novel., London: Vizetelly & Co., […], page 54

“Oh, my dears, I must tell you this. At dinner the other evening I made a really truly growly belted earl squirm. I had told him how much I liked a little speech he had made, when he turned on me in his most growly belted early manner. / “‘Do you say that, Lady Polly,’ he snorted, ‘because it is the truth or because it is the correct thing to say?’ / “‘Not being an earl,’ I replied in my honeyest voice, ‘I don’t recognise any difference between the two.’

1927 November 9, Punch, or The London Charivari, London: […] [T]he Office, […], page 512, columns 2–3

“We’ve placed your arms in that position, Miss Day,” I said in my honeyest voice, “because it’s the safest just in case you have a fracture. […]”

1957, William J[ulius] Lederer, Ensign O’Toole and Me, New York, N.Y.: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., page 177

Then this guy stalled at my desk, fishing for his wallet, giving me the honeyest smile.

1970, Cal, volumes 33–35, page 1

Then upside down by her tail she swings / And sings in the honeyest voice I’ve heard: / “One day I will grow a pair of wings / And become a furry Hummingbird.”

2001, Adrian Mitchell, Zoo of Dreams, London: Orchard Books, page 37

It was Neezer who had found Sally for us at his church, where, he testified, the woman sang “with the honeyest voice you ever heard. If her singing don’t make the Lord happy, nothing does.”

2005, Lee Siegel, Who Wrote the Book of Love?, Chicago, Ill., London: The University of Chicago Press, page 17

After hundreds of listens, Odessey and Oracle still sounds like a paragon of poignant psychedelic pop, rendered in orchestral splendor and adorned with indelible melodies that are to cry for, sung in the honeyest of tones by the angelically melancholy [Colin] Blunstone.

2017 April 19, Dave Segal, “The Zombies: Odessey and Oracle 50th Anniversary”, in The Stranger, volume 26, number 34, Seattle, Wash., page 37, column 3

Honeying and making love.

c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act III, scene iv]

[O]ne / Discuss'd his tutor, rough to common men / But honeying at the whisper of a lord; / And one the Master, as a rogue in grain / Veneer'd with sanctimonious theory.

1847, Alfred Tennyson, “Prologue”, in The Princess: A Medley, London: Edward Moxon, […], page 6