gobstopper the vulgar British term for a huge, spherical, hard-boiled sugar sweet, impossible to crunch up so that it has to be sucked. It is often made with concentric layers of different colours, so that it changes colour as it dissolves. It is really a giant comfit or dragée.
© the Estate of Alan Davidson 1999, 2006, 2014 © in the Editor’s contribution to the second and third editions, Oxford University Press 2006, 2014.