confection

[kuhn-fek-shuhn]

noun

1. a sweet preparation of fruit or the like, as a preserve or candy.

2. the process of compounding, preparing, or making something.

3. a frivolous, amusing, or contrived play, book, or other artistic or literary work.

4. something made up or confected; a concoction.

   He said the charges were a confection of the local police.

5. something, as a garment or decorative object, that is very delicate, elaborate, or luxurious and usually nonutilitarian.

6. Pharmacology.,  a medicated preparation made with the aid of sugar, honey, syrup, or the like.

verb (used with object)

1. Archaic.,  to prepare as a confection.

confection

/ kənˈfɛkʃən /

noun

1. the act or process of compounding or mixing

2. any sweet preparation of fruit, nuts, etc, such as a preserve or a sweet

3. old-fashioned,  an elaborate article of clothing, esp for women

4. informal,  anything regarded as overelaborate or frivolous

   the play was merely an ingenious confection

5. a medicinal drug sweetened with sugar, honey, etc

Word History and Origins

Origin of confection¹

First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English confeccioun, from Latin confectiōn- (stem of confectiō ) “preparation, conclusion, completion”; confect, -ion

Word History and Origins

Origin of confection¹

C14: from Old French, from Latin confectiō a preparing, from conficere to produce; see _confect

Example Sentences

It was so large that it took two servants on each side and one in the back to push the enormous wheeled trolley that bore this confection out of the kitchen.

Read more on Literature

Now I saw he’d ordered the best thing in the house, this gorgeous, frothy confection of an earlier age.

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Each candy embodies the joy of indulging in sugary confections.

Read more on Salon

He took a selfie with the cake, flashing bright blue teeth, right before Perkins cut into her intergalactic confection, the center dense with cookies and cream.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

“Sèvres Extraordinaire!” approaches its subject—pioneering, astonishing ceramic confections that are neither purely functional nor purely decorative but sui generis art, or “sculpture”—in the broadest sense.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• cake 
• candy 
• pastry