SOUR • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Sour

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/sˈaʊər/ /saʊr/ Listen

Sour

adjective

(compar. sourer; superl. sourest)

1.

Smelling of fermentation or staleness. Synonym: rancid.

2.

Having a sharp biting taste.

3.

One of the four basic taste sensations; like the taste of vinegar or lemons.

4.

In an unpalatable state. Synonyms: off, turned.

5.

Inaccurate in pitch. Synonyms: false, off-key. "Her singing was off key"

6.

Showing a brooding ill humor. Synonyms: dark, dour, glowering, glum, moody, morose, saturnine, sullen. "The proverbially dour New England Puritan" , "A glum, hopeless shrug" , "He sat in moody silence" , "A morose and unsociable manner" , "A saturnine, almost misanthropic young genius" , "A sour temper" , "A sullen crowd"

verb

(past & past part. soured; pres. part. souring)

1.

Go sour or spoil. Synonyms: ferment, turn, work. "The wine worked" , "The cream has turned--we have to throw it out"

2.

Make sour or more sour. Synonyms: acetify, acidify, acidulate.

noun

1.

A cocktail made of a liquor (especially whiskey or gin) mixed with lemon or lime juice and sugar.

2.

The taste experience when vinegar or lemon juice is taken into the mouth. Synonyms: sourness, tartness.

3.

The property of being acidic. Synonyms: acidity, sourness.

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Etymology of 'Sour'

Related searches:

sour cherry tree

sour mash whiskey

sour-gum family

WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University

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"Sour" Quotes from Famous Books

... me. They sung. The white people's yard was jus' full of them playing 'Yankee Doodle' and 'Hang Jeff Davis on a Sour Apple Tree.' ...

— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... number of the Vulpina (Riparia) grapes introduced for their roots were valuable as direct producers for wines. The fruits of this species are too small and too sour for dessert, but they are free from the disagreeable tastes and aromas of some of our native grapes and, therefore, make very good wines. The best known of the varieties of this species is the Clinton, which is generally thought to have originated ...

— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick

... they pass by, pluck Casca by the sleeve; And he will, after his sour fashion, tell you 180 What hath proceeded worthy ...

— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare

... powers to become a metaphysician. There is no discipline which so well consists with solitude, none which so instantly enfranchises the mind from the tyranny of mean self-interest or vain and envious polemics. Men do not grow sour and quarrelsome about the Absolute: everything that is polemical is inspired, as Michelet once said, by some temporal and momentary interest. The man who has climbed to the Idalian spring comes down benevolent. He does not grudge this toiling ant his grain, that ...

— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith

... of the above fruits, as well as those of spicebush, sour gum, cherries, grapes, blackberries. The flicker devours most of the fruits listed for the two woodpeckers named above, also hackberry, black alder, green brier, bayberries. A number of other woodpeckers possess habits much the same as the three above named. The ...

— Seed Dispersal • William J. Beal

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