- From the belief that sugar causes diabetes; it just takes "the disease caused by sugar" to be another meaning of "sugar." This shows a metonymic semantic change as "diabetes" is substituted for "sugar," which is known to exacerbate the symptoms of diabetes. It is exclusively used with "the."
the sugar
noun;
Slang for diabetes
Etymology : Sugar from Old French sucre; the from Old English þe
Source : "We don't even call it diabetes. We call it the sugar." (Youtube upload of comedian Lavell Crawford 12/12/2011)
Last modified: 12 December 2013