Where does “molasses” come from?
Molasses comes from French molasse, from Latin mollis meaning soft, ultimately deriving from Proto-Indo-European mel- meaning soft or mild.
molasses (English): A thick brownish syrup produced in the refining...
Definitions
- A thick brownish syrup produced in the refining...
Ancestry of “molasses”, step by step
molasses traces back through two separate lines of ancestry.
via Portuguese melaço
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Portuguese | melaço | molasses |
| 2 | Portuguese | -aço | Forming augmentatives; words expressing greatness... |
| 3 | Old Portuguese | -aço | — |
| 4 | Latin | -āceus | aceous; resembling, having the nature of, forming, belonging to |
| 5 | Latin | -āx | ish, -y |
| 6 | Latin | -ium | Suffix used to form abstract nouns, sometimes... |
| 7 | Latin | -ius | forming adjectives from nouns; nominative neuter... |
| 8 | Proto-Italic | -jōs | Forms comparative adjectives |
| 9 | Proto-Indo-European | -yós | Creates adjectives from noun or verb stems |