Demerara
name, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A type of natural, unrefined or partially refined cane sugar, which is light brown in colour, particularly used in pastries and biscuits like shortbread. countable, uncountable
- 2 Alternative letter-case form of Demerara. alt-of, uncountable
- 3 light brown cane sugar; originally from Guyana wordnet
- 4 A dark rum, made in Guyana using molasses and this sugar, mainly used for blending. countable, uncountable
"He related, “Down home we used to drink Demerara and when I was a lot younger than I am now I'd always get embarrassed, not being able to take it neat like most of them. You need a bull's gullet for neat Demerara.""
- 5 dark rum from Guyana wordnet
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- 6 a light brown raw cane sugar from Guyana wordnet
- 1 A river which rises in the rainforests of Guyana, and flows north to the Atlantic Ocean, which the country's capital of Georgetown is situated on; in full, the Demerara River.
- 2 A region of Guyana in South America, Essequebo en Demerary (Essequibo and Demerara), formerly a Dutch (later British) colony, located around the lower courses of this river.
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"Add the juice of half a lime and a teaspoonful of demerara sugar."
Etymology
The placename derives from an Arawak word. Perhaps Malali ("fast running stream"), which would have originally been the name of a section of rapids, from which the Dutch called the whole river de Malali ("the Malali"), which (with incorporation of the definite article into the name, and alternation of l and r) became Demerara. Alternatively, perhaps Immenary or Dumaruni meaning “river of the letterwood”. The sugar is so-called because it was grown in the region around the river.
Related phrases
More for "demerara"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.