Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A spiced drink of hot sweetened milk curdled with wine or ale.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To curdle; coagulate.
  • noun A drink composed of hot milk curdled by some infusion, as wine or other liquor, formerly much in favor both as a luxury and as medicine.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb obsolete To curdle; to turn, as milk; to coagulate.
  • transitive verb rare To treat with possets; to pamper.
  • noun A beverage composed of hot milk curdled by some strong infusion, as by wine, etc., -- much in favor formerly.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A beverage composed of hot milk curdled by some strong infusion, as by wine, etc.
  • verb obsolete To curdle; to turn, as milk; to coagulate; as, to posset the blood
  • verb To treat with possets; to pamper

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun sweet spiced hot milk curdled with ale or beer

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English poshet, possot : perhaps Old French *posce (Latin pōsca, drink of vinegar and water from potāre, to drink; see potable + Latin esca, food, from edere, to eat; see edible) + Middle English hot, hot; see hot.]

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Examples

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  • A drink composes of hot milk, curdled by some strong infusion.

    It was found much in favour with our ancestors, both as a luxury and medicine.

    February 4, 2009

  • eyagh

    but then, if someone had described makkolli to me before I'd drunk it...I wouldna drunk it.

    April 26, 2009

  • Also see sack-posset.

    January 15, 2011

  • "Apparently this gave her some temporary relief, but then her symptoms returned and she consulted Dr Fairfax's apothecary. He wrote that he gave her some 'Lady Hollands powder to take in a posset drink', which made her vomit."

    - Strange tales from the Royal Society, BBC website, 25 Oct 2011.

    October 26, 2011

  • "Most people kept their heads down, perhaps dulling the sharp edge of their anxieties with a particularly seventeenth-century supper drink, the posset*.... The posset was a spiced, sweet, warm confection made of ale, cider or wine--especially sack--thickened with eggs, cream or warmed milk which curdled as they were poured over the liquor."

    "* In the United States, especially in the nineteenth century, the posset became known as eggnog."

    --Kate Colquhoun, Taste: The Story of Britain Through Its Cooking (NY: Bloomsbury, 2007), 136

    January 11, 2017