caramelize

English

Alternative forms

• caramelise
• carmelize (US)

Etymology

From caramel +‎ -ize.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈkaɹ(ə)məlʌɪz/, /ˈkɑɹ(ə)məlʌɪz/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Verb

caramelize (third-person singular simple present caramelizes, present participle caramelizing, simple past and past participle caramelized)

1. (cooking, transitive) To convert (sugar) into caramel.
2. (cooking, transitive) To brown (sugar, or a foodstuff containing sugar) by means of heat.

   Slowly cooking the onions will caramelize them, which brings out the sweetness and gives them a brown color.

3. (cooking, intransitive) To undergo this kind of conversion or browning.

Derived terms

• caramelization
• caramelizer
• uncaramelized

 

Translations

convert sugar into caramel

• Finnish: karamellisoida (fi)
• Polish: karmelizować impf, skarmelizować pf
• Ukrainian: карамелізувати impf (karamelizuvaty)

brown sugar

• Catalan: acaramel·lar (ca), caramel·litzar (ca)
• Esperanto: karameligi
• Finnish: karamellisoida (fi)
• French: caraméliser (fr)
• German: karamellisieren (de)
• Italian: caramellare (it), caramellizzare
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: karamellisere (no)

• Polish: karmelizować impf, skarmelizować pf
• Portuguese: caramelizar (pt)
• Spanish: acaramelar (es), caramelizar (es)
• Swedish: karamellisera (sv)
• Turkish: karamelize etmek
• Ukrainian: карамелізувати impf (karamelizuvaty)

Further reading

• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “caramelize”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.