ACRIMONY • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Acrimony

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/ˈækrɪmˌoʊni/ Listen

noun

Acrimony n. (pl. acrimonies)

A quality of bodies which corrodes or destroys others; also, a harsh or biting sharpness; as, the acrimony of the juices of certain plants. (Archaic)

Sharpness or severity, as of language or temper; irritating bitterness of disposition or manners. "John the Baptist set himself with much acrimony and indignation to baffle this senseless arrogant conceit of theirs."

Synonyms: Acrimony, Asperity, Harshness, Tartness. These words express different degrees of angry feeling or language. Asperity and harshness arise from angry feelings, connected with a disregard for the feelings of others. Harshness usually denotes needless severity or an undue measure of severity. Acrimony is a biting sharpness produced by an imbittered spirit. Tartness denotes slight asperity and implies some degree of intellectual readiness. Tartness of reply; harshness of accusation; acrimony of invective. "In his official letters he expressed, with great acrimony, his contempt for the king's character." "It is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received." "A just reverence of mankind prevents the growth of harshness and brutality."

See images of 'Acrimony'

Etymology of 'Acrimony'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar

"Acrimony" Quotes from Famous Books

... interest, she never for a moment forgot my feelings or character. Even in her occasional resentment, for which I but too often gave her cause, (would to God I could recall those moments!) she had no sullenness or acrimony. Such was she whom I have lost, when her excellent natural sense was rapidly improving, after eight years' struggle and distress had bound us fast together and moulded our tempers to each other; when a knowledge of ...

— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger

... acrimony about earnest students, whose motive, he thinks, is a small ambition. But surely a man may be fond of metaphysics for the sweet sake of Queen Entelechy, and, moreover, these students looked forward to days in which ...

— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray

... his eyebrows and bent over his plate. "I have noticed," he said with an acrimony that surprised them all, "that hate as an occupation ...

— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... bareheaded in the evening air and recite the commencement of the burial service like a man distraught when Maryllia's crushed body had been brought home, and she thought of it often with an inward rage she could scarcely conceal. Almost,—such was her acrimony and vindictiveness—she wished ...

— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... that the two women had exchanged. Besides, in ageing, whether from repentance for her errors or from hypocrisy, Lady Douglas had become a prude and a puritan; so that at this time she united with the natural acrimony of her character all the stiffness of the new religion she ...

— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART--1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

More quotes...