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Molasses

3 stages from Latin to English.

Today it means thick dark syrup left over from refining sugar

Where does the word "molasses" come from? It comes from Latin mellaceus, passing through Portuguese before entering English (1580s).

mellaceus→melaço→molasses

Latin · classical

from mel 'honey'; with no cane sugar, Romans sweetened with honey and defrutum, grape must boiled down to a syrup

Portuguese · 1400s

"syrup from sugar refining"

Portugal's sugar plantations on Madeira, producing by the mid-1400s, left this dark syrup as the by-product of boiling cane juice; the industry then moved to São Tomé and Brazil

English · 1580s

"thick dark syrup from sugar cane"

spelled 'melasses' at first; it became a pillar of the Atlantic triangular trade, distilled into New England rum and taxed by Britain's Molasses Act of 1733

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Read the full story

Molasses’s story begins in Latin: mellaceus meant “honey-like.” From mel 'honey'; with no cane sugar, Romans sweetened with honey and defrutum, grape must boiled down to a syrup. By 1400s, the word had taken hold in Portuguese as melaço. Portugal's sugar plantations on Madeira, producing by the mid-1400s, left this dark syrup as the by-product of boiling cane juice; the industry then moved to São Tomé and Brazil. It reached English by 1580s as molasses. Spelled 'melasses' at first; it became a pillar of the Atlantic triangular trade, distilled into New England rum and taxed by Britain's Molasses Act of 1733. Today, molasses means thick dark syrup left over from refining sugar.