sugarplum
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of sugarplum
First recorded in 1600–10; sugar + plum (in the sense “small, rounded mass (of hardened sugar approximately the size of a plum)”
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The residents, including artist David Hockney, told Kensington and Chelsea borough council that Hamilton would be "destroying nature" if he cut down a sugarplum tree outside his home.
From BBC • Apr. 27, 2022
But the Senate is the sugarplum fairy dancing in Democrats’ heads.
From Fox News • Aug. 5, 2020
Living when we do, we have decades of Christmas television to add to the trees and mistletoe and sugarplum fairy visions already gathered around the holiday — new traditions to extend, play with and pervert.
From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 20, 2016
The sugarplum queen decided in the middle of her solo that she was too tired to dance anymore, so she waved her fellow dancers onto the stage to take over.
From Washington Post • Dec. 15, 2015
I’d flex and leap, and bow and sweep; a sugarplum, a swan, a maiden, a doll.
From "Wintergirls" by Laurie Halse Anderson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
