(2) CANDY, s. A weight used in S. India, which may be stated roughly at about 500 lbs., but varying much in different parts. It corresponds broadly with the Arabian [Bahar] (q.v.), and was generally equivalent to 20 [Maunds], varying therefore with the maund. The word is Mahr. and Tel. khaṇḍi, written in Tam. and Mal. kaṇḍi, or Mal. kaṇṭi, [and comes from the Skt. khaṇḍ, 'to divide.' A Candy of land is supposed to be as much as will produce a candy of grain, approximately 75 acres]. The Portuguese write the word candil.
1563.—"A candil which amounts to 522 pounds" (arrateis).—Garcia, f. 55.
1598.—"One candiel (v.l. candiil) is little more or less than 14 bushels, wherewith they measure Rice, Corne, and all graine."—Linschoten, 69; [Hak. Soc. i. 245].
1618.—"The Candee at this place (Batecala) containeth neere 500 pounds."—W. Hore, in Purchas, i. 657.
1710.—"They advised that they have supplied Habib Khan with ten candy of country gunpowder."—In Wheeler, ii. 136.
c. 1760.—Grose gives the Bombay candy as 20 maunds of 28 lbs. each = 560 lbs.; the Surat ditto as 20 maunds of 37⅓ lbs. = 746⅔ lbs.; the Anjengo ditto 560 lbs.; the Carwar ditto 575 lbs.; the Coromandel ditto at 500 lbs. &c.
(3) CANDY (SUGAR-). This name of crystallized sugar, though it came no doubt to Europe from the P.-Ar. ḳand (P. also shakar ḳand; Sp. azucar cande; It. candi and zucchero candito; Fr. sucre candi) is of Indian origin. There is a Skt. root khaṇḍ, 'to break,' whence khaṇḍa, 'broken,' also applied in various compounds to granulated and candied sugar. But there is also Tam. kar-kaṇḍa, kala-kaṇḍa, Mal. kaṇḍi, kalkaṇḍi, and kalkaṇṭu, which may have been the direct source of the P. and Ar. adoption of the word, and perhaps its original, from a Dravidian word = 'lump.' [The Dravidian terms mean 'stone-piece.']
A German writer, long within last century (as we learn from Mahn, quoted in Diez's Lexicon), appears to derive candy from Candia, "because most of the sugar which the Venetians imported was brought from that island"—a fact probably invented for the nonce. But the writer was the same wiseacre who (in the year 1829) characterised the book of Marco Polo as a "clumsily compiled ecclesiastical fiction disguised as a Book of Travels" (see Introduction to Marco Polo, 2nd ed. pp. 112-113).
c. 1343.—"A centinajo si vende giengiovo, cannella, lacca, incenso, indaco ... verzino scorzuto, zucchero ... zucchero candi ... porcellane ... costo...."—Pegolotti, p. 134.
1461.—"... Un ampoletto di balsamo. Teriaca bossoletti 15. Zuccheri Moccari (?) panni 42. Zuccheri canditi, scattole 5...."—List of Presents from Sultan of Egypt to the Doge. (See under [BENJAMIN].)