lollipops have been a popular children’s treat since the late nineteenth century. Today “lollipop” commonly refers to hard candy on a stick, but the word “lollipop” first appeared in British English in the early 1800s, well before the modern stick candy appeared sometime after 1890. In nineteenth-century Britain, any small children’s candy could be called “lollipop,” stick or not; at the same time, “lollipop” was frequently used metaphorically to refer to all manner of trifling amusements. In the United States, “sucker” was the preferred term for candy on a stick until the 1920s.
