Caramel

How to spell caramel

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce caramel

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does caramel mean?

1. nounSugar that has been heated until it browns, used as a flavouring, sauce, or chewy sweet.

Caramel in a sentence

• She drizzled warm caramel over the sliced apples.

• The chewy caramel stuck to his back teeth.

Where does caramel come from?

Language of origin: French

Caramel came into English in the early 1700s from the French word caramel, which France had taken from the Spanish caramelo. Beyond Spanish the trail grows fainter, and scholars offer two leading explanations. One traces it to the Late Latin calamellus, meaning 'little reed' or 'little cane', a fond nod to the sugar cane from which the sweet was boiled. The other points to the Medieval Latin cannamella, literally 'sugar cane', from canna 'cane' and mel 'honey', and that 'mel' for honey is the same root that gives us 'mellifluous'. Either way the modern sense settled on the rich brown substance made by heating sugar until it browns, which is exactly why the spelling keeps that soft unstressed middle vowel and the easily forgotten final '-el' rather than '-al'.

How the word is built

• caramel (a single root borrowed whole; from French/Spanish for burnt sugar)
• no English affixes