Laevulose is an older alternative name for fructose — also spelled levulose — the sweet monosaccharide abundant in fruit, honey and high-fructose syrups. The name reflects its optical rotation: fructose solutions rotate plane-polarised light to the left (laevorotatory), in contrast to dextrose (glucose), which rotates it to the right. Though largely replaced by ‘fructose’ in modern food science and labelling, the term still appears in older literature, pharmacopoeias and some traditional recipes; analysts encountering it should read it as D-fructose, the naturally occurring enantiomer.