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    "id": 1070660,
    "title": "What is the difference between sweets and candy?",
    "slug": "what-is-the-difference-between-sweets-and-candy",
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    "url": "https://sweeties.net/wiki/what-is-the-difference-between-sweets-and-candy/",
    "modified": "2026-09-26T00:50:53+01:00",
    "excerpt": "None, really. Sweets is the British and Irish word, candy the American and Canadian one, and lollies the Australian. Where the words came from.",
    "content_text": "There is no real difference between sweets and candy. They are two words for the same thing, used in different parts of the English speaking world. The trade calls the whole category sugar confectionery, a term that covers boiled sweets, jellies, chocolates, chewing gum and more.\nWho says what\nCandy is the everyday word in the United States and Canada.Sweets is the everyday word in the UK, Ireland and a number of other countries.Lollies is the everyday word in Australia and New Zealand.\nIn the UK, a lolly usually means a lollipop or an ice lolly rather than sweets in general. Within Britain there are regional words too, such as sweeties in Scotland and kets in the North East: see what people call sweets around Britain and why are sweets called ket?\nWhere candy comes from\nThe word candy came into English from the Old French çucre candi, meaning sugar candy. The French may have earlier roots in the Arabic qandi, the Persian qand and the Sanskrit khanda, all words for sugar. Khanda was the name for the pieces of sugar made by boiling sugarcane juice in ancient India, where sugarcane is native. If so, candy is at heart a word for sugar that travelled from India to Europe.\nWhere sweets comes from\nSweets is short for sweetmeats. A sweetmeat, from the Old English swete mete, is a sweet delicacy or confection, and the meat in it simply means food, not flesh. Dictionaries today define a sweet as a confection made from sugar, or high in sugar, used especially in the UK: see why do the British call them sweets?\nCandy in British English\nBritain has not dropped the word candy altogether. It survives in a handful of fixed names:\nCandy floss, the spun sugar Americans call cotton candy. It is sold as candy floss in the UK, Ireland, India, New Zealand and South Africa, and as fairy floss in Australia.Candy cane, the striped Christmas stick: see how do they get the stripes in candy canes?Rock candy, a hard sweet of large sugar crystals, a name first recorded in 1723.\nAcross the Atlantic\nFor how pick and mix works on the other side of the Atlantic, where it is bought as candy, see do Americans have pick and mix?",
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