Dictionary

barley-sugar en · ADJ

Meanings

1. (figuratively) Very sweet-natured or saccharine; harmless.
   • Well, the little dog barked on furiously, that is for a barley-sugar dog; and, after rolling themselves in the grass to get rid of the load of jam and cream on their clothes, they managed to get up and run on. 1851, The New monthly belle assemblée, page 292:
   • c. 1800, Anne Isabella Byron, quoted in Malcolm Elwin, Lord Byron's wife I shall write to you tomorrow on a subject which I have not now time to discuss. This I declare now because I like to excite your curiosity, and to delay gratifying it. I am a sweet chicken ! ! ! You ought to think me the most barley-sugar daughter in the creation!
   • In the apartment of the Abate a few pictures remain, but none of first order : one or two Carlo Dolces served to strengthen our opinion of his being one of the most barley-sugar painters of the Italian schools. 1824, John Scott, John Taylor, The London Magazine, page 126:
2. (not-comparable) Twisted helically.
   • Suppose that, initially, the barley-sugar aerials are twisted in such a sense that the polar diagram of each has its maximum north of the zenith. 1963, Radio Astronomy:
   • So they left the remains of Fosdyke and walked across the road and through the old church, restored in the eighteenth century, which had barley-sugar pillars and theatrical red curtains backlit by the sun. 2008, John Mortimer, Summer's Lease, Penguin UK, →ISBN:
   • Kate's living room was simply furnished with a large damask-covered sofa that had seen better days, a folding table with barley sugar legs and a couple of upright chairs. 2012, Jane Beck, For Better For Worse, Troubador Publishing Ltd, →ISBN:
   • Chair-backs were very straight and no time was wasted on carving. This severe discipline prepared English craftsmen for their great period. After a slight relapse under Charles II into rather frivolous forms — very barley-sugar, but discreet […] 1935, Anthony Bertram, The House: A Machine for Living In; a Summary of the Art and Science of Homemaking Considered Functionally:
   • The barley-sugar columns, carved in spiral channels with alternating bands of vine ornament, exist to this day though moved from their original site. 1988, Robert Milburn, Early Christian Art and Architecture, Univ of California Press, →ISBN, page 95:

Forms

Synonyms

Solomonic (twisted helically)