A sweetmeat is a piece of candy or crystallized fruit, especially the fancy kind served at celebrations or given as special treats. In earlier centuries, before candy became cheap and common, sweetmeats were precious luxuries: chunks of fruit preserved in sugar, candied orange peels, sugared almonds, or delicate marzipan shapes.

The word sounds strange because “meat” used to mean any kind of food, not just animal flesh. So a sweetmeat was simply “sweet food.” Wealthy families would display elaborate arrangements of sweetmeats at dinner parties, showing off their prosperity and generosity.

Today you might encounter the word in historical novels or old cookbooks. When characters in a Victorian story offer sweetmeats to their guests, they're presenting what we'd now call fancy candies or confections. Turkish delight, the candy that tempts Edmund in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, would count as a sweetmeat: a special, luxurious sweet treat that feels magical because it's unusual and carefully made.