sour

Meanings

Adjective

• Having an acidic, sharp or tangy taste.
• Made rancid by fermentation, etc.
• Tasting or smelling rancid.
• Peevish or bad-tempered.
• Excessively acidic and thus infertile.
• Containing excess sulfur.
• Unfortunate or unfavorable.
• Off-pitch, out of tune.

Noun

• The sensation of a sour taste.
• A drink made with whiskey, lemon or lime juice and sugar.
• Any cocktail containing lemon or lime juice.
• A sour or acid substance; whatever produces a painful effect.
• The acidic solution used in souring fabric.

Verb

• To make sour.
• To become sour.
• To spoil or mar; to make disenchanted.
• To become disenchanted.
• To make (soil) cold and unproductive.
• To macerate (lime) and render it fit for plaster or mortar.
• To process (fabric) after bleaching, using hydrochloric acid or sulphuric acid to wash out the lime.

Related

Opposite words

• sweet

Origin

• From Middle English sour, from Old English sūr, from Proto-West Germanic *sūr, from Proto-Germanic *sūraz ("sour"), from Proto-Indo-European *súHros. Cognate with West Frisian soer, Dutch zuur, Low German suur, German sauer, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian sur, French sur, Faroese súrur, Icelandic súr.