Sweets

sweets in the sense being considered here, is a word which English children recognize as a collective term for diverse items of sugar confectionery. Sometimes reduced to the diminutive ‘sweeties’ (especially in Scottish usage), it is roughly equivalent to the French term bonbons and N. American ‘candy’. (In another sense, ‘sweets’ can be more or less equivalent to desserts, sweet courses at the end of meals.)

1. Reading Mason (1998);
2. Opie (1988);
3. Richardson (2003).