barley-sugar

Adjective

barley-sugar (comparative more barley-sugar, superlative most barley-sugar)

1. (figuratively) Very sweet-natured or saccharine; harmless.
   • I shall write to you tomorrow on a subject which I have not now time to discuss. This I declare now because I like to excite your curiosity, and to delay gratifying it. I am a sweet chicken ! ! ! You ought to think me the most barley-sugar daughter in the creation!c. 1800, Anne Isabella Byron, quoted in Malcolm Elwin, Lord Byron's wife
   • In the apartment of the Abate a few pictures remain, but none of first order : one or two Carlo Dolces served to strengthen our opinion of his being one of the most barley-sugar painters of the Italian schools.1824, John Scott, John Taylor, The London Magazine, page 126
2. (not comparable) Twisted helically.
   • Chair-backs were very straight and no time was wasted on carving. This severe discipline prepared English craftsmen for their great period. After a slight relapse under Charles II into rather frivolous forms — very barley-sugar, but discreet […]1935, Anthony Bertram, The House: A Machine for Living In; a Summary of the Art and Science of Homemaking Considered Functionally
   • Suppose that, initially, the barley-sugar aerials are twisted in such a sense that the polar diagram of each has its maximum north of the zenith.1963, Radio Astronomy

   Synonyms:

   Solomonic