sherbet
/ˈʃəːbət
/noun
1 [mass noun] British A flavoured sweet effervescent powder eaten alone or made into a drink: disks of fruit-flavoured rice paper filled with sherbet...
- The inviting assortment of goodies include acid drops, sherbet lemons, sherbet pips, coconut mushrooms, cinder toffee, Yorkshire mixtures, liquorice sticks, and lollies of all flavours under the sun.
- My granddad and uncle worked together in a sweet factory, so always had a healthy supply of coconut ice, jelly babies and sherbet dip.
- A sherbet powder was produced which could either be made into a fizzy drink, or sucked into the mouth, where it would likewise fizz.
2(Especially in Arab countries) a cooling drink of sweet diluted fruit juices: the ladies floated around in diaphanous silks and served sherbet and other refreshments...
- In rural areas, lassis and sherbets appeal to people of all ages.
- The Crusaders then took it to Europe, while the Ottoman Turks began using it creatively in rice dishes, puddings, pastries, jams, sherbets, syrups and a large variety of sweets.
- So were the gulab-based sherbets which can be taken both during summer and winter.
3North American Water ice; sorbet.Sales of ice milk, sherbets, water ices and novelties continued to increase, but the very foundation of our business, ice cream, started to slip....
- Keep in mind that - unlike sorbets, sherbets, and most soy desserts - ice creams and frozen yogurts are a decent source or calcium.
- Fruit-flavored ice creams, sorbets and sherbets benefit from the use of vanilla because the ingredient can balance out acidic notes of the citrus or fruit product.
4Australian humorous Beer: [count noun]: I went down the local pub for a few sherbets
Usage
The tendency to insert an r into the second syllable of sherbet is common: the misspelling sherbert accounts for around a quarter of the citations for the word in the Oxford English Corpus.
Origin
Early 17th century: from Turkish şerbet, Persian šerbet, from Arabic šarba 'drink', from šariba 'to drink'. Compare with syrup.
The words sherbet and sorbet (late 16th century) are essentially the same, and are closely related to syrup (Late Middle English) and shrub (mid 18th century), a drink made with sweetened fruit juice and rum or brandy. All go back to a group of words centring on Arabic sariba ‘to drink’. The sharp-tasting powdered sweet sherbet was originally used to make a fizzy drink, from the 1850s.