sugar (n.)

late 13c., sugre, "sweet crystalline substance from plant juices," from Old French sucre "sugar" (12c.), from Medieval Latin succarum, from Arabic sukkar, from Persian shakar, from Sanskrit sharkara "ground or candied sugar," originally "grit, gravel" (cognate with Greek kroke "pebble").

The Arabic word also was borrowed in Italian (zucchero), Spanish (azucar, with the Arabic article), and German (Old High German zucura, German Zucker), and its forms are represented in most European languages (such as Serbian cukar, Polish cukier, Russian sakhar).

Its Old World home was India (Alexander the Great's companions marveled at "honey without bees") and it remained exotic in Europe until the Arabs began to cultivate it in Sicily and Spain; not until after the Crusades did it begin to rival honey as the West's sweetener. The Spaniards in the West Indies began raising sugar cane by 1506.

The reason for the -g- in the English word is obscure (OED compares flagon, from French flacon). The pronunciation shift from s- to sh- is probably from the initial long vowel sound syu- (as in sure).

As a general name for a type of chemical compound, from 1826. Slang use as a "euphemistic substitute for an imprecation" [OED] is attested by 1891. As a term of endearment, it is attested by 1930.

Sugar-maple, the North American species that yields sugar, is from 1731. Sugar-tongs, for lifting small lumps, are attested from 1708.

early 15c., sugren, "sweeten with sugar," also figuratively, "make more pleasing, mitigate the harshness of," from sugar (n.). Related: Sugared (late 14c. as a past-participle adjective, figuratively, of words, speech); sugaring.