Lollipop

Lollipop

A large, rainbow-swirl lollipop
Alternative names	Lolly, sucker, sticky-pop
Type	Confectionery
Main ingredients	Sucrose, corn syrup, flavoring
Variations	Ice pops

A lollipop is a type of confectionery consisting of a sweetmeat of hard candy or water-ice mounted on a stick and intended for sucking or licking. Different informal terms are used in different places, including lolly, sucker, sticky-pop, etc. Lollipops are available in many flavors and shapes.

Lollipops are available in a number of colors and flavors, particularly fruit flavors. With numerous companies producing lollipops, the candy now comes in dozens of flavors and many different shapes. They range from small ones which can be bought by the hundred and are often given away for free at banks, barbershops, and other locations, to very large ones made out of candy canes twisted into a circle.

Most lollipops are eaten at room temperature, but "ice lollipops" or "ice lollies" are frozen water-based lollipops. Similar confections on a stick made of ice cream, often with a flavored coating, are usually not called by this name.

Some lollipops contain fillings, such as bubble gum or soft candy. Some novelty lollipops have more unusual items, such as mealworm larvae, embedded in the candy. Other novelty lollipops have non-edible centers, such a flashing light, embedded within the candy; there is also a trend of lollipops with sticks attached to a motorized device that makes the entire lollipop spin around in one's mouth.

In the Nordic countries, Germany, and the Netherlands, some lollipops are flavored with salmiak.

Lollipops can be used to carry medicines.

Some lollipops have been marketed for use as diet aids, although their effectiveness is untested, and anecdotal cases of weight loss may be due to the power of suggestion. Flavored lollipops containing medicine are intended to give children medicine without fuss.