Skip to content
OneKitly

caramel

nounadjectiveverbattested in dialogue

  • United States//ˈkæɹ.ə.mɛl//
  • United States//ˈkæɹ.ə.məl//
  • Australia//ˈkæ.ɹəˌmɛl//
  • Australia//ˈkæ.ɹə.məl//

A smooth, chewy, sticky confection made by heating sugar and other ingredients until the sugars polymerize and become sticky.

noun

  1. 1

    A smooth, chewy, sticky confection made by heating sugar and other ingredients until the sugars polymerize and become sticky.

    The usual technique for making caramel is to mix table sugar with some water, then heat until the water has boiled off and the molten sugar colors.

  2. 2

    A (sometimes hardened) piece of this confection.

    Caramel has a rich, complex flavor and consistency, viscous and sticky and creamy all at once, that works well with most sweets and fruits, with coffee and chocolate, and even with salt: the prized caramels of Brittany are made with a notable dose of sea salt.

  3. 3

    A yellow-brown color, like that of caramel.

Etymology

Borrowed from French caramel, from Spanish caramelo, from Portuguese caramelo, dissimilated from Late Latin calamellus, diminutive of calamus (“reed”) (and a doublet of chalumeau and shawm). Alternatively from Medieval Latin cannamellis, which is a compound of canna + mellis.

adjective

  1. 1

    Of a yellow-brown color.

    Every time I saw this caramel cutie, she was working on a new proposal or business plan or flyer to promote herself and her event coordinating business.

verb

  1. 1

    datedTo caramelize.

    To turn out, place the dish over the mould, and invert both together, when, if the caramelling has been complete, the pudding should slip out without any difficulty at all.

Forms

plural
caramels
past tense
carameled, caramelled
past participle
carameled, caramelled
present participle
carameling, caramelling
third person singular
caramels
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).