azúcar

Inherited from Old Spanish açúcar, borrowed from Arabic السُّكَّر (as-sukkar, “the sugar”), via Andalusian Arabic. Cognate with English sugar.

• IPA^(key): /aˈθukaɾ/ [aˈθu.kaɾ] (Spain)
• IPA^(key): /aˈsukaɾ/ [aˈsu.kaɾ] (Latin America, Philippines)

• Audio (Spain):

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• Audio:

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• Rhymes: -ukaɾ
• Syllabification: a‧zú‧car

azúcar m or f same meaning (plural azúcares)

1. sugar

• In addition to being used as either a masculine noun or a feminine noun, azúcar may also be preceded by the article el while construed as feminine (a phenomenon otherwise reserved for feminine nouns beginning with a stressed /ˈa/ sound, such as alma). Thus, el azúcar blanco, la azúcar blanca and el azúcar blanca are all valid ways of saying "the white sugar". This latter form is considered a remnant of a grammatical rule that existed in older variants of Spanish, according to which the article el preceded feminine words that began with any (stressed or unstressed) vowel sound, not just /ˈa/.
• According to the Royal Spanish Academy, azúcar is normally masculine when used in its scientific sense (i.e., referring to the chemical compound).

• → Bikol Central: asukar
• → Cebuano: asukar
• → Chamorro: asukat
• → Guaraní: asuka
• → Hiligaynon: asukar
• → Ilocano: asukar
• → Limos Kalinga: asukal
• → Quechua: asukar
• → Tagalog: asukal
• → Waray-Waray: asukar
• → Yucatec Maya: asukaar

• “azúcar”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024