Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Sour   Listen
adjective
Sour  adj.  (compar. sourer; superl. sourest)  
1.
Having an acid or sharp, biting taste, like vinegar, and the juices of most unripe fruits; acid; tart. "All sour things, as vinegar, provoke appetite."
2.
Changed, as by keeping, so as to be acid, rancid, or musty, turned.
3.
Disagreeable; unpleasant; hence; cross; crabbed; peevish; morose; as, a man of a sour temper; a sour reply. "A sour countenance." "He was a scholar... Lofty and sour to them that loved him not, But to those men that sought him sweet as summer."
4.
Afflictive; painful. "Sour adversity."
5.
Cold and unproductive; as, sour land; a sour marsh.
Sour dock (Bot.), sorrel.
Sour gourd (Bot.), the gourdlike fruit Adansonia Gregorii, and Adansonia digitata; also, either of the trees bearing this fruit. See Adansonia.
Sour grapes. See under Grape.
Sour gum (Bot.) See Turelo.
Sour plum (Bot.), the edible acid fruit of an Australian tree (Owenia venosa); also, the tree itself, which furnished a hard reddish wood used by wheelwrights.
Synonyms: Acid; sharp; tart; acetous; acetose; harsh; acrimonious; crabbed; currish; peevish.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Sour" Quotes from Famous Books



... forbid that I should imitate my servant's sour folly (for, if a man must be a fool, I would have him a cheerful fool) or find anything to blame in the pomp and seemly splendour of a Royal Court; yet the profusion that met my eyes amazed me. It was ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope

... it appears, the lady of whom Mrs. Piozzi relates, that 'For a lady of quality, since dead, who received us at her husband's seat in Wales with less attention than he had long been accustomed to, he had a rougher denunciation:—"That woman," cried Johnson, "is like sour small beer, the beverage of her table, and produce of the wretched country she lives in: like that, she could never have been a good thing, and even that bad thing is spoiled."' [Anec. p. 171.] And it is probably of her, too, that another anecdote is told:—'We had been visiting ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... have I known the fear of death as I knew it then. I put the glass to my lips, and Peter's eyes relented. I knew he would not kill me just then. That was a relief. But the wine was not. It was cheap, new wine, bitter and sour, made of the leavings and scrapings of the vineyards and the vats, and it tasted far worse than beer. There is only one way to take medicine, and that is to take it. And that is the way I took that wine. I threw my head back and ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London

... [Footnote: The gas which is exhaled from the lungs after the oxygen of the air has done its duty in purifying the blood, the same also which effervesces from soda water and champagne.] I tasted the cherries: they were very sour, though when put into the cask they were sweet. The cherries and the liquid associated with them were then placed in a copper boiler, to which a copper head was closely fitted. From the head proceeded a copper tube which passed straight through a vessel of cold water, and issued at ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... is another means which will certainly succeed: it is to leave at the bottom of each hogshead three or four inches of the vinous liquor, when transported into the still for distilling. This rising, which will rapidly turn sour, will form a ferment sufficient to establish ...
— The Art of Making Whiskey • Anthony Boucherie

... pad, which is the principal part of the average hectograph or duplicator, is, as a rule, unsatisfactory, as it is apt to sour and mold in the summer and freeze in the winter, which, with other defects, often render it useless ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... were provided at the instance of Captain Cook, who claimed them as anti-scorbutics, for instance, malt, sour krout, salted cabbages, soup-slabs, mustard and saloop, as well as carrot marmalade, and thickened and unfermented beer, which was tried at the suggestion of Baron Storch of Berlin, and Mr. Pelham, secretary to the ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne

... right. You're fundamentally all right, and that means you'll rise to every opportunity you get." Dick's voice took on some of the patronage of a leader for his follower. "I'd bank on Ellery Norris if the rest of the world turned sour." ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter

... partners. They both received me together. One was a soft, lean man, with a sour smile. The other was a hard, fat man, with ill-tempered eyebrows. I took a great dislike to both of them. On their side, they appeared to feel a strong distrust of me. We began by disagreeing. They showed me my husband's "instructions," providing, among other things, ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins

... us, and Josiah Farnshaw had formed the habit of that kind of thinking. He felt that he was being robbed, and forgot that his daughter was being befriended, and out of his trip to Topeka got only a sour distaste for the woman he could clearly see was going to encourage the child in extravagance. He had never spent so much money on the entire family in a winter as he had done on that girl, and yet it wasn't enough. "He'd bet he'd never give 'er another year's ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... voice, her manner were charming. I had pictured her a sour old woman, who had hidden away from a world that had offered her ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson

... about? Does it show a lack of moral earnestness not to be in love with old maids and sour-faced virtue? ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson

... disgust. Not a few have thrown round the Gipsy an enchanting, bewitching halo, which an inspection has proved nothing less than a delusion and a snare. Others have tried to improve this field of thistles and sour docks by throwing a handful of daisy seeds among them. It requires something more than a phantom life-boat to rescue the Gipsy and bring him to land. Scents and perfumes in a death-bed chamber only last for a short time. A bottle of rose-water thrown into a room where decomposition ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... ask him?" said Patsy. "He's as sour and crabbed in looks as he is in disposition, and has treated Uncle John's advances shamefully. I'd like to help Myrtle bring the old fellow back to life; but perhaps we can find an easier way than to shut him up ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne

... iron Stoic can suppress the tear! What sour reviewer read with vacant eye! What bard but decks his literary bier!— Alas! I cannot sing—I ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... hat-box and typewriter reposing on the sidewalk while I, homeless, sat perched in the midst of them, I chanced upon a room which commanded a glorious view of the lake. True, it was too expensive for my slim purse; true, the owner of it was sour of feature; true, the room itself was cavernous and unfriendly and cold-looking, but the view of the great, blue lake triumphed over all these, although a cautious inner voice warned me that that lake view would ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber

... to mention the names of dead persons, imagining that were the ghost to hear his name pronounced he might fancy he was being called for and might accordingly suspend his habitual occupation of munching sour fruits in the forest to come ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... G. Yer right there, Guv'nor—it's bin a lesson to me, I know that. 'Ere, will you come and 'ave a whiskey-sour along of me ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 20, 1891 • Various

... fiddlesticks, Phyllis, don't let any old sour idea like that ball up your naturally sweet temper. You and Roxy are just women folks and had better keep out of men's business, like this wrangle between Doug and Mr. Forsythe. Trot along and do your stocking-darning and pie-fixing together as per usual schedule. And ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess

... curse; walking round me, and surveying me from head to foot; then calling for the observations of the others, he turned round upon his heel, and with one of his peculiar wild airs, 'Ha, ha, ha, ha,' burst he out, 'that these sour-faced proselytes should take it into their heads that they cannot be pious, without forfeiting both their good-nature and good-manners!—Why, Jack,' turning me about, 'pr'ythee look up, man!—Dost thou not know, that religion, if it ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... had managed to shove, and dodge, and manoeuvre his smart ship through sixty miles in twenty-four hours. From the doorstep of the little cabin, Jimmy, chin in hand, watched our distasteful labours with insolent and melancholy eyes. We spoke to him gently—and out of his sight exchanged sour smiles. ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad

... fact while he was eating his dinner among them—it's a way which A.B.'s have of "rubbing it in" to an officer down on his beam ends. Drunkard? Yes, of course he was, and everybody knew it. Why, even that sour-faced old devil of a door-keeper at the Home put a tract on his bed every evening. Curse him and his "Drunkard, beware!" and every other rotten tract on intemperance. Well, he had been sober for a week now—hadn't ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke

... it, he should lose the boat with himself and every man in her, very wisely resolved to return on board, and wait for another opportunity of signalising himself. We afterwards found that, in this instance, the grapes really were sour, as the sloop and schooner had taken in the most valuable part of the brig's cargo, and that she had remaining on board only ninety tons of salt. We made several attempts during the afternoon to cut out these ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... a very proper behaved one she is, and him the same, that is, for a gentleman I mean; but Jane; I say, I'm thinking he'll have eat too much sour bread lately! I wish I knowed how they'd have their eggs boiled till I'd ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell

... as that course led him through the swale bottoms. He felt his way through the wet snow to the watery muskeg berries, and went by feel as he pulled up the rush-grass by the roots. But it was tasteless stuff and did not satisfy. He found a weed that tasted sour and he ate all he could find of it, which was not much, for it was a creeping growth, easily hidden under ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London

... with a sour grin when she was taken to the room where, a prisoner, he was sitting near a window and smoking some of the sheriff's ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Mountains - or Bessie King's Strange Adventure • Jane L. Stewart

... Emperor's than that of the King of Bavaria, or of Wuertemberg, or of Saxony. This is the petty, pin-pricking babble of boarding-school girls, or of those official supernumeraries who have turned sour in their retirement. Even the honest democrat is made indignant. If the German navy is not the work of William the Second, then its parentage is far to seek; and if the German navy is not proud to be called "my navy," it is wofully lacking in ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier

... years a real Sunday dinner in a real home has got Sherry's flossiest efforts looking like a picnic collation with ants in the pie. You're coming with me, more for my sake than for yours, because the thought of you sitting here, like this, would sour the day ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber

... being a startling and probing investigation as to whether Sir Isaac Newton had his hat on when the apple tumbled on his head, what sort of an apple it most probably was, and whether it actually fell from the tree upon him, or, being found too hard and sour to eat, had been pitched over his garden wall by the hand of an irritated little boy. I ought also to make mention of Mr. Plummycram's "Narrative of an Ascent to the summit of Highgate-hill," with Mr. Mulltour's "Handbook for Travellers ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 12, 1841 • Various

... of a fair estate in Scotland, attended with the improvement of a good education. ... He hath written some excellent tracts, but not published in his name; and hath a very fine genius; is a low, thin man, brown complexion, full of fire, with a stern, sour look, and 50 years old.—Swift. A most arrogant, conceited pedant in politics; cannot endure the least contradiction in any ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... that the state of affairs between them, while conventionally correct, was thoroughly unnatural and full of peril. Alice, a very good girl, obedient and tractable, was in danger of becoming a recalcitrant and sour old maid. Will, a healthy and normal young man, with no bad habits, was in danger of being driven to them by the emptiness and exasperation of his mind. The worst of it all was that both of the young people were, in accordance with ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke

... oatmeal, Hamish," says he, "there's many a lusty lad reared on worse; but we'll be hivin' tatties and herrin' for a change, and plenty o' sour milk tae slocken the ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars

... Saint Malo there is some pretty land, although a great deficiency of marine scenery. But never mind that. Stay at home, and don't go abroad to drink sour wine, because they call it Bordeaux, and eat villainous trash, so disguised by cooking that you cannot possibly tell which of the birds of the air, or beasts of the field, or fishes of the sea, you are cramming down your throat. "If all is right, there is no occasion for disguise," is an old ...
— The Three Cutters • Captain Frederick Marryat

... soon as he saw himself beaten, fled away, and came to a woman whose name was Jael, a Kenite, who received him, when he desired to be concealed; and when he asked for somewhat to drink, she gave him sour milk, of which he drank so unmeasurably that he fell asleep; but when he was asleep, Jael took an iron nail, and with a hammer drove it through his temples into the floor; and when Barak came a little afterward, she showed Sisera nailed to the ground: ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... have been forced to pass without news from our families. You at least have had letters from your Gretchens, astounding letters, very likely, in which the melancholy blends with blue eyes, make a wonderful literary salad, composed of sour-krout, Berlin wool, forget-me-nots, pillage, bombardment, pure love, and transcendental philosophy. But you like all this just as you like jam with your mutton. You have what pleases you. Your ugly faces receive kisses by ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... thousand times; the horrible faces of the people; the pushing, bullying ouvreuse, with her false politeness, and her real rapacity, drove me out of the place at the end of an hour; and, as it was too early to go home, I sat down before a cafe on the Boulevard, where they served me a glass of sour, watery beer. There on the Boulevard, in the summer night, life itself was even uglier than the play, and it wouldn't do for me to tell you what I saw. Besides, I was sick of the Boulevard, with its eternal grimace, ...
— The Point of View • Henry James

... offered them. I asked him what were the new constituencies. 'If possible worse than the old.' The people are generally alive to public affairs—look into the votes and speeches of members, give their opinions—but are universally corrupt. They have a sour feeling against what are nicknamed abuses, rail against sinnicures, as they call them, and descant upon the enormity of such things while they are forced to work all day long and their families have not enough to eat. But ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville

... fraction of that which is active do we obtain and employ in our voltaic batteries! Zinc and platina wires, one-eighteenth of an inch in diameter and about half an inch long, dipped into dilute sulphuric acid, so weak that it is not sensibly sour to the tongue, or scarcely to our most delicate test-papers, will evolve more electricity in one-twentieth of a minute (860.) than any man would willingly allow to pass through his body at once. The chemical action ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday

... of large quantities of lime in arid soils has a number of distinct advantages, among which the following are most important: (1) It prevents the sour condition frequently present in humid climates, where much organic material is incorporated with the soil. (2) When other conditions are favorable, it encourages bacterial life which, as is now a well-known fact, is ...
— Dry-Farming • John A. Widtsoe

... foul of the waiter, because he had brought me goat's milk which was very sour. There ensued the most comical scene. In an access of fury the stout woman raged and stormed; the waiter, a lank young fellow, with a simple, good-natured face, after trying to explain that he had committed the fault by inadvertence, ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing

... on us all three, in turn, with a very sour face, and walked out. "Surely," I thought to myself, "this brother of Oscar's is not beginning well! First, the daughter takes offense at him, and now the father follows her example. Even on the other side of the Atlantic, Mr. Nugent Dubourg exercises a ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins

... and that was universal peace in our little church. We had no disputes and wrangling about the nature and equality of the holy, blessed, and undivided Trinity, no niceties in doctrine, or schemes of church government; no sour or morale dissenters to impose more sublimated notions upon us; no pedant sophisters to confound us with unintelligible mysteries: but, instead of all this, we enjoyed the most certain guide to Heaven; that is, the word of God: besides which, we had the comfortable views ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe

... regency did at last arrive, and they brought with them an army of Bavarians. The king was received with a degree of enthusiasm, and with proofs of devotion which would have touched any hearts not protected by an impenetrable padding of beer and sour crout. But it was, unfortunately for the young king, the fashion at the new court to despise and distrust the Greeks, to underrate their exploits, and to declaim against their honesty. The revolution was treated ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various

... authority thus conferred upon him in a lax and kindly, or severe and cruel manner, according to his disposition. One of the boys generally chosen for this duty was a big, good-hearted fellow named Munro; another was an equally big, but sour-dispositioned chap named Siteman; and whenever Mr. Garrison showed signs of going out, there was always intense excitement among the boys, to see who would be appointed monitor, and lively satisfaction, or deep disappointment, according ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley

... with now and then a curiously complected DISEASED one. You see, they think we whites and the occasional nigger are Injuns that have been bleached out or blackened by some leprous disease or other—for some peculiarly rascally SIN, mind you. It is a mighty sour pill for us all, my friend—even the modestest of us, let alone the other kind, that think they are going to be received like a long-lost government bond, and hug Abraham into the bargain. I haven't ...
— Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven • Mark Twain

... Phil slipped in quietly without being seen by his mother and tiptoed up to his room, where, in sour meditation, he spent the intervening time until supper was ready. In a vague way he realized that he had, by deserting the team, betrayed himself to all his comrades as a fellow swayed by petty jealousy; ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott

... looked brighter that morning, and he was quite hopeful when, in the dim old study, seated at his father's desk and with the portrait of stern old John Burnit frowning and yet shrewdly twinkling down upon him, he received Johnson, dry and sour looking as if he expected ill news, and Applerod, bright and radiant as if Fortune's purse were just about to ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester

... I hear 's a good and upright Man, True to his word, and friendly in his Heart; Not proud and insolent, morose and sour, Like these his petty Officers and Servants: I want to see your King, and let him know What must be done to keep the Hatchet dull, And how the Path of Friendship, Peace, and Trade May be kept clean and solid as ...
— Ponteach - The Savages of America • Robert Rogers

... lovely and captivating, she was clever. She seemed to agree with the rule of the philosopher who held that conversation was given to mankind simply for purposes of evasion. By the end of the first week Bobbie MacLaurin was earning sour glances from his staid British captain, and glances not at all encouraging from ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... sour by nature," Patsy answered; "but if there really was danger, I'm sure he'd protect us, for he lives here ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne

... Pilar. "It isn't what you call sour grapes. Papa could be rich if he liked. We have copper on our land, much copper. Men came and told papa that if he chose to work it he might have one of the best copper ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... to the old woman, and opened her purse, at the sight of which Mrs. Kebby's sour face relaxed. When Miss Vrain gave her half a sovereign she quite beamed with joy. "The blessing of heaven on you, my dear," she said, with a curtsey. "Gold! good gold! Ah! this is a brave day's work for ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume

... sour and musty, and by the dim light of the swinging sea-lamp I saw every bit of available wall-space hung deep with sea-boots, oilskins, and garments, clean and dirty, of various sorts. These swung back and forth with every roll of the vessel, giving rise to a brushing ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London

... discovers too many plots and doings that cannot be otherwise accounted for; nor need we go far to learn that men may "spin motives out of their own bowels." In pursuance of this idea, the Poet takes care to let us know that, in John's account, the having his sour and spiteful temper tied up under a pledge of fair and kindly behaviour is to be "trusted with a muzzle, and enfranchised with a clog"; that is, he thinks himself robbed of freedom when he is not ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... heerd. A Mexican come down off the Rim ter-day an' he fetched the news." Here the lad looked furtively around, then whispered. "An' thet greaser was sent by somebody. I never heerd no more, but them sheepmen looked pretty plumb sour. An' one of them, comin' out, give me a kick, darn him. It shore is the ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey

... inevitable. My English was rotten with French idiom; it was like an ill-built wall overpowered by huge masses of ivy; the weak foundations had given way beneath the weight of the parasite; and the ideas I sought to give expression to were green, sour, and ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore

... chew the commonest pears; but they form a slight minority, which will gradually altogether disappear. The votaries of Pine-apple pretend to observe the characteristic effect which such food produces upon the feeders. They denounce them as stupid, sour, and vulgar. ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli

... his colony of monks, he desired at any rate to induce her to withdraw from the world, and counselled her to enter a Carmelite convent. Mademoiselle's ardent passion for M. de Lauzun seemed to the Trappist Abbe a scandal; in fact, his sour spirit could brook no scandal of any sort. "I attended her father as he lay dying," said he, "and to me belongs the task of training, enlightening, and sanctifying his daughter. I would have her keep silence; she ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... your success at Cambridge, so you leave with a good omen. Remember me to GREEN CORN if it is in season; if not, you had better hang yourself on a sour apple tree, for your voyage has ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... It made me think of vinegar and, lemon-juice, and all the sour things you can think of mixed together. Her lips were so thin you could hardly see them at all, and they turned right ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey

... scholar, and a ripe and good one; Exceeding wise, fair-spoken, and persuading; Lofty and sour to them that loved him not, But to those men that ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... minute, then as soon as I can I will break away." When strangers passed she still allowed to linger about her lips a lazy smile, as though she expected or remembered some friend, which made them say: "What a lovely woman!". And for certain men only she had a sour, strained, shy, cold smile which meant: "Yes, you old goat, I know that you've got a tongue like a viper, that you can't keep quiet for a moment. But do you suppose that I care what you say?" Coquelin passed, talking, in a group of listening friends, and with a sweeping wave of his hand ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... she pressed her pretty lips to the lattice-work. "The men die like sheep in the hospital, and get sour bread tossed to them as if they were pigs, and are thrashed if they pawn their muskets for a stoup of drink when their throats are as dry as the desert—and you live ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... huge coarse wooden bowl of goat's milk, and some sour bread; and feeling in real need of food, they tried to eat and drink. While doing so, Kennedy noticed that Violet gave a perceptible start and looking up, observed the one eye of their grim entertainer intently fixed on the gold watch-chain ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... dot Inza Purrage?" he gurgled. "I used to think she vos der most peautiful girl vot efer seen me, but, so hellup me sour krout, she vos sixdeen times ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish

... more sour and ill even than of yore, and there was still an unpleasant sensation in the lumbar regions of Master Busy's spine, whenever he sat down, which recalled a somewhat vigorous outburst ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy

... blow, should he be able to do so unobserved and without being directly taxed with it; though, of course, he would deny it if observed by any of the other boys, being an unmitigated liar, in addition to having a sour and vindictive disposition. ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson

... almost like caoutchouc; but they undergo, in time, the same phenomena of putrefaction as gelatine. The people call the coagulum that separates by the contact of the air, cheese. This coagulum grows sour in the space of five or six days, as I observed in the small portions which I carried to Nueva Valencia. The milk contained in a stopped phial, had deposited a little coagulum; and, far from becoming fetid, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt

... There is a prairie-states crab-apple, which I have never seen, but which, I am told, has nothing like the beauty of our exquisite Eastern native. This Western species lacks the long stem and the bright color of the flowers of our favorite, and its fruits, while quite as viciously sour, are a dull and greasy green. The great West has many other things, but we have the ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland

... schemes and put better ones in their place, to my great advantage. I do things which ought to try man's patience, but they never seem to try his; he always finds a colorable excuse for what I have done. His soul was born superhumanly sweet, and I do not think anything can sour it. I have not known his equal among men for lovable qualities. But for his cool head and wise guidance I should never have come out of the Webster difficulties on top; it was his good steering that enabled me to work out my salvation and pay a hundred cents on the dollar—the ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... any more to the Angel," von Liegnitz said calmly, "I will be a very sour kraut. But ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett

... by, pluck Casca by the sleeve; And he will, after his sour fashion, tell you 180 What hath ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare

... Buxton to Isabel, "how fortunate we are in having such a friend of her Grace's with us. We hear all the cream of the news, even though it be a trifle sour sometimes." ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson

... before it is hopped, put it into a jar, and a little yeast when it becomes lukewarm, and cover it over. In three or four days it will have done fermenting; set it in the sun, and it will be fit for use in three or four months, or much sooner, if fermented with sour yeast, and mixed with an ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... darkness, on the long bench at the other end of the table, sat Lorand, who had ordered a bottle of wine, rather to avoid sitting there for nothing, than to drink the sour vintage of the Lowland. ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai

... went right on uninterrupted by my sour thoughts. "The present course of the ship is interception of Mars. Unless the course can be changed, the ship ...
— Jack of No Trades • Charles Cottrell

... influence of a desert less lonely than habitual, he began to take keener note of his comrade, and found him different from any other he had ever encountered in the wilderness. This man never grumbled at the heat, the glare, the driving sand, the sour water, the scant fare. During the daylight hours he was seldom idle. At night he sat dreaming before the fire or paced to and fro in the gloom. He slept but little, and that long after Cameron had had his own rest. He was tireless, ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey

... instance, critics, who are our natural enemies," said Rachel. "C'est a dire, if critics were not too sour ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards

... and I must despond at last, I perish here, in Russia I was ruined, please to aid me in Your merciful humanity by something, if I had L15 I could start off from here to go somewhere to look for my daily bread, and if I had L30 so I shall go to Jerusalem because I am convinced by my bitter and sour troubles and shocking tribulations here is nothing to do any more for me. I have not been in the Russo-Jewish fund and do not know it where it is, and if it is in the Jewish shelter of Leman Street so I have no protection, no introduction, no recommendation ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill

... more than four, and a length of twenty. Here we have every variety of the "fairer half of creation" displayed before us, ranged round an odoriferous heap of salted fish. Here we see crones of sixty and girls of sixteen; the ugly and the lean, the comely and the plump; the sour-tempered and the sweet—all squabbling, singing, jesting, lamenting, and shrieking at the very top of their very shrill voices for "more fish," and "more salt;" both of which are brought from the stores, in small buckets, by a long train of children running backwards ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins

... a lovely, charming thing!' he exclaimed. 'Hav'n't they reared it on snails and sour milk, Nelly? Oh, damn my soul! but that's worse than I expected—and the devil ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte

... which the mind affects the vasomotor system may be conceived in the following manner. When we actually taste sour fruit, an impression is sent through the gustatory nerves to a certain part of the sensorium; this transmits nerve-force to the vasomotor centre, which consequently allows the muscular coats of the small arteries that permeate the salivary glands to relax. Hence more ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin

... unhappy prognostications speedily fulfilled! I was helpless and knew it. For a second time those whose dignified office it was to personify the charity of our Redeemer showed themselves the least charitable of mankind. I was chewing the sour cud of these reflections when I heard Virginia thanking the officers for their paternal resolves in her regard. Strange girl! She thanked Heaven, on her knees, for their pious mission, promised them remembrance in her prayers, asked to be ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett

... is necessary; I suppose we shall have to see the Professor, after all; but hold on; I have seen sour milk used, George." ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay

... may render us, yet the study of them, which has but recently been begun, has already shown, through the remarkable labors of Messrs. Pasteur, Schloesing and Muntz, Van Tieghem, Cohn, Koch, etc., the importance of these organisms in nature. All of us have seen wine when exposed to air gradually sour, and become converted into vinegar, and we know that in this case the surface of the liquid is covered with white pellicles called "mother of vinegar." These pellicles are made up of myriads of globules of Mycoderma aceti. This mycoderm ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 446, July 19, 1884 • Various

... but little an authority which it grants and withdraws at its pleasure. Montesquieu forgets that every chance to rise which excites in the strong and virtuous a noble emulation, will cause in the weak and sour the corresponding base passion of envy. Complete despotism he believes to be impossible. There is in every nation a general spirit on which all power is founded. Against this, the ruler is powerless. It is wise not to disturb established forms and institutions, for the very causes ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... more disposed to go pleasantly down the current of life it were hard to meet with; and yet, such was the consequence of these confounded four months' sequestration from all other society, we became sour and cross-grained, everlastingly disputing about trifles, and continually arguing about matters which neither were interested in, nor, indeed, knew anything about. There were, it is true, few topics to discuss; newspapers we never saw; sporting there was none,—but ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... weighed an ounce. She had none of your Chinese feet, nor waspy, unhealthy waists, which those may admire who will. No: Dora's foot was a good stout one; you could see her ankle (if her robe was short enough) without the aid of a microscope; and that envious little, sour, skinny Amalia von Mangelwurzel used to hold up her four fingers and say (the two girls were most intimate friends of course), "Dear Dorothea's vaist is so much dicker as dis." And so I have ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Lydia felt very daring, she went to the door herself to show her wares, and Eben stayed in the carriage and laughed. He said she offered a bottle of vanilla as if it were poison and she wanted to get rid of it, or as if it were water, and of no use to anybody. Once, when she had been denied by a sour-faced woman, he stopped under the shade of a tree farther on, and left Lydia there while he went back and, by force of his smile and persuasive tongue, sold the same bottle to the same woman, and came back chuckling in a ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown

... reek that arose from all about me. The place was one big, horrid stink. It smelled of ether and iodoform and carbolic acid—there being any number of improvised hospitals, full of wounded, in sight; it smelled of sour beef bones and stale bread and moldy hay and fresh horse dung; it smelled of the sweaty bodies of the soldiers; it smelled of everything that is fetid and ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb

... gods, and requiring us to drink it off in honor of Bacchus, Pan, or Ceres, we found, upon lifting our cups to drain them, that they had been charged with some colored and perfumed medicament more sour or bitter than the worst compound of the apothecary, or than massican overheated in the vats. These sallies, coming from the master of the world, were sure to be well received; his satellites, of whom not a few, even on this occasion, were near him, being ready to die ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware

... battalions and squadrons, which were constantly moving onward, the men, women, and children would come out with jugs of sour beer, bread, and strong white brandy which they sold to the soldiers for a few sous. Buche and I broke a crust as we looked on and laughed with the girls, who are blonde and very pretty ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann

... between things, and there is no use trying to make out they're all alike. Sour isn't sweet, and hard ain't soft. What's the use of talking as if it was? I always like to look at ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner

... of milk that has stood an hour of two, dilute, not hardly as much as a third, with sweetened water, and if there is a tendency to sour stomach, put in a teaspoonful of lime water to every quart. The milk and water should both be boiled separately. If the baby is constipated, it is best to heat the milk over boiling water and not ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... the springy turf of Lashmar Common, Eric stood gazing at the stars and drinking in the thousand mingled scents and sounds of the night. Somewhere hard by, a bonfire was pungently smouldering; there was a sour smell where a flock of geese had been feeding all day; flaring acridly across was a transitory reek of burnt lubricating oil, and the hint of a cigar so faint that it was gone before he could be sure of it. . . . The lumbering creak of the mill-wheel ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna

... Popova who, by guarded methods, encouraged her to violent exercise, whereby she became as hard and trim as an antelope. He continued to supply her with all kinds of sour and biting foods and sharp mineral waters, which are the sworn enemies of any sebaceous condition. And now that she was nineteen, almost at the further boundary of the marrying age, and slimmer than ever before, he rejoiced greatly, ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade

... resistance on behalf of the colonies to the English Parliament was his impregnable conviction that the love of liberty was the ruling passion of the people of the colonies. In 1766 he said of the American people: "Every act of oppression will sour their tempers, lessen greatly, if not annihilate, the profits of your commerce with them, and hasten their final revolt; for the seeds of liberty are universally found there, and nothing can eradicate them." Because they loved liberty, they would ...
— Four American Leaders • Charles William Eliot

... England, I take it, that makes one feel his duty to be his religion, and the England that every American comes to as to a shrine. When this is sunk in the sea, or trampled over by a host of invading Germans, or mauled into bankruptcy by pandering politicians and sour socialists, one of the most delightful spots in the whole world will have been lost, and no artist ever be able to paint such a picture again, for nowhere else is there just this texture of canvas, just this quality if pigment, just these fifteen centuries ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson

... thought that he would sow wheat. He had but one ox. The others had died during the winter. So he set the thralls to help pull the plow. I saw their sour looks and was afraid, but Leif ...
— Viking Tales • Jennie Hall

... carefully under their arms. The pale blue of a Bavarian dotted the assembly at rare intervals, some officer from Von Werder's army, attentive, shy, saying little even when questioned. The huge Saxon officers, beaming with good-nature, mixed amiably with the sour-visaged Brunswick men and the ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers

... Kill her away, boy, tear her out! Yes, give her to sister, and tell her that's the way to serve sour females! I declare, Ursula, she has got ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge

... secretly cruel man.) They were horribly grim, private, cold, and quiet; the identical furnace smelling fearfully (some anatomical broth in it I suppose) as if the body were still there; jars of pieces of sour mortality standing about, like the forty robbers in Ali Baba after being scalded to death; and bodies near us ready to be carried in to next morning's lecture. At the house where I afterwards dined ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... the numbers, and heard how long you had held out, methought I was returned once more to the good old days of Calais. And here this youth of mine, not yet with his spurs, though I dare say full five years older than you, must needs look sour upon it, because he has to sleep on a settle for one night—and that, too, when he has let Oliver de Clisson slip through his fingers, without so much as a scratch taken or given on either side! It grieves my very soul to think on it! But all has gone to rack ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge

... begin life together—you and me—and you're going to make our fortunes; but it's a mad lookout if you mean to put all your strength into hating them that have no hate for you. It will make you bitter and useless, and you'll grow up a sour, friendless creature, like Levi Baggs. What's he got out of all his hate and ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts

... so that settled it. Well, then, I said to mysel', 'It's all for th' best,' an' I reckoned to bide as I were. But raly now, as ye've coom," a sudden smile lit up her face, a smile less frosty, less sour, less grim than any that had hitherto found their way there, "I dunno how it is, but I seem to ha' taken a fancy to ye. I did fro' th' first. I reckon ye'll mak' ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)



Words linked to "Sour" :   vinegariness, malodourous, change state, dry, gustatory sensation, acetous, acerbity, tart, acetose, soured, off-key, unharmonious, inharmonious, off, sour salt, sour mash, ill-natured, tangy, sour cream, turned, acidulate, acid, sour cherry tree, morose, sour grass, false, sour gum, glowering, stinky, acerb, lemonlike, turn, sour grapes, sour cherry, tasty, work, ill-smelling, dark, sullen, sour bread, unpleasant-smelling, acidulousness, sourish, acidity, sweet, sourness, malodorous, acidify, cocktail, acidulent, subacid, lemony, sour-tasting, whisky sour, taste property, sour fig, sour dock, acerbic, rancid, sour-gum family, whiskey sour, glum, sour mash whiskey, vinegary, saturnine, taste, sweeten, taste sensation



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com