Licorice is a black sweet made from a plant root. A stick of licorice, licorice allsorts, black licorice.
The root is naturally about fifty times sweeter than sugar, and eating a great deal of it raises blood pressure and lowers potassium, which is why there are official warnings about it. This is the American spelling; British writing has liquorice. The Greek means sweet root.
1nounlicoriceA black sweet made from a plant root.
“The children chewed on sticks of black licorice at the cinema.”
licorice is a sweet.
Also accepted in games: liquorice
Latin liquiritia is an alteration of Greek glykyrrhiza, sweet root, from glykys, sweet, plus rhiza, a root.
Ancient Greek
γλυκύρριζα
Latin
liquiritia
Old French
licoresse
Middle English
lycorys
English, today
licorice
Built from
From Middle English lycorys, from Old French licoresse, from Latin liquiritia, alteration of Ancient Greek γλυκύρριζα: γλυκύς (“sweet”) + ῥίζα (“root”) (English glucose, English rhizome). a doublet of glycyrrhiza.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA