sherbet

American  

[shur-bit] / ˈʃɜr bɪt /

noun

• sherbets
  plural

1. Sometimes sherbert a frozen dessert made with sweetened fruit juice or purée, typically containing milk or cream, with egg white or gelatin often added.

2. a traditional Middle Eastern drink made of sweetened fruit juice diluted with water and ice.

3. Chiefly British. a sweetened powder moistened in the mouth and eaten as a fizzy confection or mixed with water to make a fizzy drink.

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sherbet British  

/ ˈʃɜːbət /

noun

1. a fruit-flavoured slightly effervescent powder, eaten as a sweet or used to make a drink

   lemon sherbet

2. Also called (in Britain and certain other countries): sorbet. a water ice made from fruit juice, egg whites, milk, etc

3. slang beer

4. a cooling Oriental drink of sweetened fruit juice

5. informal a euphemistic word for shit

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• sherbets
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of sherbet

First recorded in 1595–1605; from Turkish şerbet, from Persian sharbat, from Arabic sharbah “a drink,” from shariba “to drink”

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Explanation

Sherbet is a frozen dessert made of fruit juice and sugar. Though it looks like ice cream, sherbet is a little different since it's made with little or no milk or cream. Since sherbet is typically made with fruit, it often comes in shockingly bright colors like pink, orange, or green and has a refreshing taste. This delicious summer treat has been around a long time, in some form at least — the word sherbet came into English in the 17th century from the Turkish word zerbet, meaning "drink made from diluted fruit juice and sugar." Make sure you don't add an extra "r" in sherbet: the ending is spelled "bet."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

sherbet sherbets

He illuminated the auditorium with candles and converted the private boxes into buffets stocked with alcohol, coffee, hot chocolate, sherbet and carved meats.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 22, 2026

Armed with a three-and-a-half-octave range, her voice was “as cool as sherbet, creamy, delicately colored, mildly flavored,” as Ariel Swartley wrote in Rolling Stone magazine in 1979.

From New York Times ● Jun. 17, 2024

Then came the Romans who brought hard durum wheat, and the Arabs who introduced sherbet, couscous and eggplant, not to mention a penchant for stuffed foods, pistachios and spices like saffron and cinnamon.

From Salon ● Jul. 31, 2023

When Miss World became popular in India, it also brought a different idea of beauty - of tiny sculpted waists, sherbet gowns and a heavily contoured face.

From BBC ● Jun. 27, 2023

Bubble-gum pink, with fire-engine red, with peachy sherbet, with bright cinnamon.

From "Out of My Mind" by Sharon M. Draper

The 800-square-foot shop serves 40 flavors of ice cream alongside sherbets, sorbets and fresh-fruit freezes; I opted for two scoops of strawberry cheesecake.

From Washington Post ● Mar. 14, 2018

Sweetshops peppered his boyhood and boyhood writing: lemon sherbets, bootlaces, gobstoppers and toffees; hard-boiled sweets served by boot-faced proprietors.

From The Guardian ● Sep. 13, 2016

There were savoury sausages, and sweet sherbets of every flavour, with coinciding lollipops to dip in them.

From The Guardian ● Jan. 11, 2013

Ice-cream novelties in the forms of bananas, daisies, ducks, rabbits, other flora & fauna were restricted to five varieties per month; ices and sherbets to two flavors per month.

From Time Magazine Archive

Granular, coarse-grained frozen desserts, such as some sherbets and frappés, are frozen with a large proportion of salt, which permits the freezing to take place more quickly.

From Woman's Institute Library of Cookery Volume 4: Salads and Sandwiches; Cold and Frozen Desserts; Cakes, Cookies and Puddings; Pastries and Pies by Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

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Related Words

• frozen yogurt
• sorbet

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