コンペイトウ

Portuguese confeito is the source form behind コンペイトウ, also written 金平糖 or 金米糖. Priberam defines confeito as a small sugar-covered grain or small sugared sweet, and Wiktionary traces it to Latin confectus. Shogakukan's Nihon Kokugo Daijiten cites Taikoki in 1625 with こんへい糖 in a list that also has かすていら, ぼうる, かるめひる, and あるへい糖. The word entered Japanese with Nanban confectionery in the 16th and early 17th centuries. Luis Frois and Oda Nobunaga are often mentioned in accounts of a 1569 gift of such sweets, though dictionary evidence is safer for the printed form. In Portuguese, confeito was a general confectionery term. In Japanese, the word narrowed to one product made by coating a small core with sugar syrup in a rotating heated pan, producing many small points. Edo accounts later connect production with Osaka and Kyoto confectioners. Today コンペイトウ or 金平糖 means that specific hard sugar candy, sold in small bags, gift boxes, and Kyoto-style sweet shops. Portuguese confeito can mean dragees, cake decorations, or other sugared pieces, so it is less specific. English sugar candy is only approximate; 金平糖 has its own Japanese product meaning and a fixed katakana reading.