Etymology of 'Sugar'

Sugar, in ancient and medieval Europe, was a rare and costly spice. India was the nearest source of supply; sugar was shipped across the wide Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, and the Mediterranean to reach its European purchasers.

Sugar was originally traded as solid cakes. It was in India that granulated sugar was invented, perhaps about 200 B.C.E.; its ancient Indic (Pali and Prakrit) name, sakkhara, reflects this fact, because literally sakkhara (also sakkara) means 'gravel, grit'. This word reached the ancient West along with the sacks of sugar; it was adopted into classical Greek (sakkhar, later sakhar), Latin (saccharum), and early Arabic (sukkar). Medieval Russians got their sugar from the Greeks of Byzantium, so they called it sakhar. Medieval western Europe bought sugar from Arab traders, and therefore gave it names that resemble the Arabic: medieval Latin succarum, Italian zucchero, Old French sukere, modern French sucre.

Sugar must have been almost unknown in Britain until Norman times. The English name for it is borrowed from Norman French: the form is suker or zuker in thirteenth-century manuscripts, thensuger, and finally sugar.