# ice cream, ice milk, sherbert **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 2, 2001, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ice-cream-ice-milk-sherbert/64095 "2001-05-02T15:54:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Knighted\_Vorpal\_Sword](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ac91a4/32.png) [@Knighted\_Vorpal\_Sword](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knighted_Vorpal_Sword)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2001, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ice-cream-ice-milk-sherbert/64095/1 "2001-05-02T15:54:45Z")
What’s the difference between ice cream, ice milk, and sherbert? ---
**Author:** ![Athena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2001, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ice-cream-ice-milk-sherbert/64095/2 "2001-05-02T16:08:13Z")
Ice Cream is cream, sugar, and flavorings mixed together and frozen. I believe in the US it has to contain at least 10% milk fat. Ice Milk is a lighter version of ice cream, containing milk, sugar, and flavorings. It’s 3 to 6% milk fat. Sherbet is a frozen dessert consisting primarily of fruit juice, but it also has milk & (usually) sugar. It differs from something like Strawberry Ice Cream in that the percentage of fruit to cream in a sherbet is much higher than in an ice cream. Think of sherbet as frozen fruit juice with a little milk added, whereas fruit-flavored ice cream is frozen cream/sugar with a little fruit added. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2001, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ice-cream-ice-milk-sherbert/64095/3 "2001-05-02T16:21:21Z")
Athena got the spelling right: sherbet. From Arabic _sharbah (sharbat-_ in the construct state), from the root _sh-r-b_ ‘to drink’; related to _sharâb_, ‘a drink’, the source of _syrup_. _Sherbet_ is the Turkish form of the word. Originally, it referred to a sugary drink, flavored with rosewater or perhaps fruit. As a luxury for those who could get it, _sherbet_ was prepared with snow or crushed ice (similar to Italian _granita_, originating from the fruit ice served to Roman emperors using snow brought from the mountains by swift runners). That would explain how the name of an iced sugar syrup concoction became applied to this quasi-ice-milk, once refrigeration became technologically available to the masses in the 19th century. Obviously, _sorbet_ comes from the same Arabic root. How the intrusive extra _-r-_ got into the word: a linguistic process called "assimilation’ meaning that two adjacent syllables come to resemble each other. The _-er-_ in the first syllable is echoed by another _-er-_ in the next. I don’t think the spelling “sherbert” is really acceptable in writing yet, but you hear it all the time. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2001, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ice-cream-ice-milk-sherbert/64095/4 "2001-05-02T19:23:54Z")
Sherbert is my cousin’s name. And while we are dealing with the ethymology of the word… In Spanish it is “sorbete” and it is water-based, no milk, most of the time. You might think “sherbet” and “sorbete” come from the same root? “Sorber” means to “slurp” and also to drink through a straw and the construction “sorbete” would roughly be equivalent to “slurpee”. I would guess “sorber” would be related to “absorber”, “absorb”, which comes from Latin. I have no way of finding the answer to this one… ---
**Author:** ![Athena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2001, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ice-cream-ice-milk-sherbert/64095/5 "2001-05-02T20:17:58Z")
I would guess the Spanish “sorbete” more properly translates to the English “sorbet”, which is a fruit-juice based frozen dessert. Sherbet is something quite different as it also has milk. According to [dictionary.com](http://dictionary.com), both “sherbet” and “sorbet” come from the Turkish Ottoman “sherbet.” Specifically: > [@](#): > > Word History: The word sherbet has been in the English language for several centuries (first recorded in 1603) but not as a name for what one normally thinks of as sherbet. The word came into English from Ottoman Turkish sherbet or Persian sharbat, both going back to Arabic arbah, “drink.” The Turkish and Persian words referred to a beverage of sweetened, diluted fruit juice that was popular in the Middle East and imitated in Europe. Eventually in Europe sherbet came to refer to a carbonated drink. Because the original Middle Eastern drink contained fruit and was often cooled with snow, sherbet was applied to the frozen dessert (first recorded in 1891). It is thus distinguished slightly from sorbet, which can also mean “a fruit-flavored ice served between courses of a meal.” Sorbet (first recorded in English in 1585) goes back through French (sorbet) and then Italian (sorbetto) to the same Turkish sherbet that gave us sherbet. ---
**Author:** ![Zyada](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zyada/32/3028_2.png) [@Zyada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zyada)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2001, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ice-cream-ice-milk-sherbert/64095/6 "2001-05-02T20:40:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by sailor \* > \*\*In Spanish it is “sorbete” and it is water-based, no milk, most of the time. > > You might think “sherbet” and “sorbete” come from the same root? > > “Sorber” means to “slurp” and also to drink through a straw and the construction “sorbete” would roughly be equivalent to “slurpee”. > \*\* I would say it is very, very likely - Spain was under Moorish (arabic) rule for a very long time and much of their vocabulary traces directly to the Arabic language, rather than latin.