Definition of "sweet"

A few types of molecules get sensed by receptors on the tongue. Protons coming off of acids ping receptors for "sour." Sugars get received as "sweet." Bitter, salty, and the proteinaceous flavor umami all set off their own neural cascades.

2018 May 16, Adam Rogers, “The Fundamental Nihilism of Yanny vs. Laurel”, in Wired

Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me, / I will give them all back again.

1838 October, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Reaper and the Flowers”, in Voices of the Night, Cambridge, Mass.: […] John Owen, published 1839, page 8

a voice sweet, tremulous, but powerful

1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Ticknor and Fields, page 135

There's something tragic, but almost pure / Think I could love you, but I'm not sure / There's something wholesome, there's something sweet / Tucked in your eyes that I'd love to meet

2017 April 13, Mitchy Collins, Samantha Derosa, Christian Medice, “Broken”, in Finding It Hard to Smile‎, performed by Lovelytheband

Her crew knew that deep in her heart beat engines fit and able to push her blunt old nose ahead at a sweet fourteen knots, come Hell or high water.

1932, Delos W. Lovelace, King Kong, published 1965, page 1

GORDON Strachan enjoyed the sweetest of his 16 matches in charge of Scotland so far as his team enhanced their prospects of Euro 2016 qualification with a crucial and deserved victory over Republic of Ireland.

14 November 2014, Steven Haliday, Scotland 1-0 Republic of Ireland: Maloney the hero

"Visit in two days though," said Tommo. "Hang in there mate, got a joey coming, we'll be sweet then."

2012, John Hoskison, Inside: One Man's Experience of Prison

The white of an egg, or blood mingled with salt water, doth gather the saltness and maketh the water sweeter; this may be by adhesion.

1627, Francis Bacon, “Sylva Sylvarum: or A Natural History”, in The Works of Francis Bacon, published 1826, page 66

Nothing has been found so effectual for preserving water sweet at sea, during long voyages, as charring the insides of the casks well before they are filled.

1821, Robert Thomas, The modern practice of physic, page 713

Sweet interchange / Of hill and valley, rivers, woods, and plains.

1667, John Milton, Paradise lost (source), Samuel Simmons, page 278

For someone who hadn't seen her only sister in over twenty years, Alice sure took her sweet time.

2014, Rexanne Becnel, Leaving L.A., page 12

"and, sweet my child, let them be men of good repute and carriage."(and, my child, allow them sweetly to be men with good reputations and conduct)

c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Loues Labour’s Lost”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene i]

Wherefore frowns my sweet?

1611, Ben[jamin] Jonson, Catiline His Conspiracy, London: […] [William Stansby?] for Walter Burre, (please specify |act=I to V)

"You think that I'll take anything.""I know you will, sweet...""There wasn't going to be any of that. You promised there wouldn't be.""Well, there is now," she said sweetly.

1936 Aug., Ernest Hemingway, "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber", Cosmopolitan

a wilderness of sweets

1667, John Milton, “Book V”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […]; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873,

Fear's fire to fervency, which makes love's sweet prove nectar.

1613, John Marston, William Barksted, The Insatiate Countess, III.2

In size and shape it resembles the heart of a calf, and the interior substance is similar to thick cream, sweeted with fine sugar.

1825, John Breckinridge, C.R. Harrison, Western Luminary ... - Volume 1, page 318

It might also be given in the form of a mixture — the drug being insoluble in a watery menstruum — suspended by the aid of mucilage and sweeted by any of the various flavoring syrups.

1890, The Cincinnati Lancet-clinic - Volume 63, page 331

Bring me now where the warm wind blows, where the grasses sigh, where the sweet-tongued blossom flowers; where the shower, fan soft like a fishermans net thrown through the sweeted air.

1997, Morag Styles, From the Garden to the Street

A sour maketh sweets two-fold sweeted.

2012, Keith Ringkamp, PATIENCE WORTH: A Balm for Every Ill, page 34