sweet

\ \ [OE] Sweet is part of an ancient family of ‘sweet’-words that goes back to the Indo- European base *swād-. From this evolved Greek hēdús ‘sweet’ (and also hēdoné ‘pleasure’, source of English hedonism [19]), Latin suāvis ‘sweet, pleasant’ (source of English suave) and suādēre ‘advise’ (source of English dissuade and persuade), and Sanskrit svādús ‘pleasanttasting’.

\ \ Its Germanic descendant was *swōtja-, which evolved into German süss, Dutch zoot, Swedish söt, Danish sød, and English sweet. The use of the noun sweet for a ‘piece of confectionery’ (presumably short for sweetmeat [15]) dates from the mid-19th century.

\ \ Cf.⇒ DISSUADE, HEDONISM, PERSUADE, SUAVE