October 3, 2001

treacle

I'm curious about the word treacle. Someone was eating "treacle tart" in a novel I read not long ago. I know that if something is "treacly," it's sickeningly sentimenal--but where does the word come from?

Treacle is an interesting word. It comes from the Indo-European root *ghwer, which means 'wild beast'. This developed into Latin ferus, from which we get feral and fierce, Latin ferox, from which we get ferocious, and Greek ther, from which we get treacle, as well as chalicothere and theropod. (You can look those up.)

In Greek, a theriake antidotos is 'an antidote against wild animals'. In ancient and early medieval medicine, it was a compound made of numerous ingredients, including the flesh of dried vipers, which was used to treat venomous bites. The phrase was shortened to theriake and became theriaca in Latin, triacle in Old French, and treacle in English.

From the 14th until the early 19th century, treacle meant either 'an antidote to venomous bites or poisons' or, by extension, 'a remedy'. Chaucer wrote in "The Man of Law's Tale": "Crist, which that is to every harm triacle" ('Christ, who is a remedy for every harm'). Richard Bradley wrote in The Family Dictionary (1727): "To eat Garlick fasting is the Treacle of the Country People in the time of a Plague." Treacle was also used figuratively. Milton wrote in The Reason of Church Government (1641): "With the sovran treacle of sound doctrine...to fortifie their hearts against her Hierarchy."

As early as the end of the 17th century, treacle also meant 'the uncrystallized syrup produced in the process of refining sugar' or 'molasses'. As you know, "a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down," and treacle came to refer to the syrup that disguised the bad taste of medicine rather than to the medicine itself.

According to the OED, Tobias Smollett was the first (in 1771) to use treacle to mean 'something cloyingly sweet'. Charles Reade wrote in The Cloister and the Hearth (1860): "'Oh, you nasty, cross old wretch!' screamed Catherine, passing in a moment from treacle to sharpest vinegar."

In the U.S., treacle most commonly means 'unrestrained sentimentality': "The novel is treacle, and because it attempts to address serious subject matter, its sentimentality is maddening" (Washington Post). It can, however, also mean 'syrup'--a writer for the Gold Coast Bulletin said of a movie: "It's more sickening than cotton candy dipped in treacle."

Georgia