Okay, what does this mean?
Is it just a cute thing to have named these candies?
Or are there pariels I don’t want to know about?
Nonpareil or non pareil= French for “no equal”. Passed into English as a borrowed word, um, some time in the eighteenth century?
But why “without equal”? I’ve heard of false advertising, but this is ridiculous. They’re just bits of sugar
You’re dealing with two different meanings of the word.
The word is recorded in English from about 1450, meaning what Steve Wright said it did, "without equal.
The use to indicate candy covered with colored sugar pellets is from 1697. And this cite was from a French writer who tasted a comfit which he said “we call Non-pareil in France.”
I guess you’ll have to ask the French why they called it so.