Definitions

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

  • noun A crystalline disaccharide of fructose and glucose, C12H22O11, found in many plants but extracted as ordinary sugar mainly from sugar cane and sugar beets, widely used as a sweetener or preservative and in the manufacture of plastics and soaps.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A general name for the sugars identical in composition and in general properties with cane-sugar, having the formula (C12H22O11)n: same as saccharose.

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

  • noun (Chem.) A common variety of sugar found in the juices of many plants, as the sugar cane, sorghum, sugar maple, beet root, etc. It is extracted as a sweet, white crystalline substance which is valuable as a food product, and, being antiputrescent, is largely used in the preservation of fruit. Called also saccharose, cane sugar, etc. At one time the term was used by extension, for any one of the class of isomeric substances (as lactose, maltose, etc.) of which sucrose proper is the type; however this usage is now archaic.

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

  • noun biochemistry A disaccharide with formula C12H22O11, consisting of two simple sugars, glucose and fructose; normal culinary sugar

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

  • noun a complex carbohydrate found in many plants and used as a sweetening agent

Etymologies

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

[French sucre, sugar; see sucrase + –ose.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French sucre ("sugar"), derivation of Latin saccharum + -ose ("full of").

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Examples

  • Well, for one thing, high fructose corn syrup has a substantially worse effect on blood sugar than does the equivalent sweetness in sucrose from sugar cane.

    Balkinization 2007

  • Meanwhile, sucrose is simply consumed by all bacteria, Zehner said.

    Beware Whey Low Steve Carper 2007

  • Well, for one thing, high fructose corn syrup has a substantially worse effect on blood sugar than does the equivalent sweetness in sucrose from sugar cane.

    Balkinization 2007

  • Meanwhile, sucrose is simply consumed by all bacteria, Zehner said.

    Archive 2007-05-01 Steve Carper 2007

  • Just as sucrose is made of two simple sugars bound together, lactose is made of the two simple sugars glucose and galactose, bound together.

    Archive 2006-03-01 Steve Carper 2006

  • Just as sucrose is made of two simple sugars bound together, lactose is made of the two simple sugars glucose and galactose, bound together.

    Lactose and Sugars Steve Carper 2006

  • The sugars found in our drinks are made up of the sugars in fruit juice and sucrose, which is needed to ensure that our drinks taste great – without it, they would taste too sharp.

    The truth about health drinks 2011

  • The results are extremely concerning, but few commercial beverages are sweetened only with fructose; most are sweetened with sucrose, which is half glucose and half fructose.

    Tim Harlan, M.D.: Sugary Drinks And Your Risk Of Disease M.D. Tim Harlan 2010

  • The counterargument is that sucrose, which is half fructose and half glucose, occurs naturally in fruit, and humans have eaten it for thousands of years.

    THE NEW ATKINS FOR A NEW YOU Dr. Eric C. Westman 2010

  • The counterargument is that sucrose, which is half fructose and half glucose, occurs naturally in fruit, and humans have eaten it for thousands of years.

    THE NEW ATKINS FOR A NEW YOU Dr. Eric C. Westman 2010

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