bitter

Meanings

Adjective

• Having an acrid taste (usually from a basic substance).
• Harsh, piercing or stinging.
• Hateful or hostile.
• Cynical and resentful.

Noun

• A liquid or powder, made from bitter herbs, used in mixed drinks or as a tonic.
• A type of beer heavily flavored with hops.
• A turn of a cable about the bitts.
• A hardware system whose architecture is based around units of the specified number of bits .

Verb

• To make bitter.

Related

Similar words

• jaded
• English pale ale, EPA

Opposite words

• optimistic

Origin

• From Middle English bitter, bittre, from Old English bitter, biter, from Proto-West Germanic *bit(t)r, from Proto-Germanic *bitraz ("bitter"), equivalent to bite + -er. Compare Saterland Frisian bitter ("bitter"), West Frisian bitter ("bitter"), Dutch bitter ("bitter"), Low German bitter ("bitter"), German bitter ("bitter"), Swedish bitter ("bitter"), Icelandic bitur ("bitter").
• bit + -er