sour
adjEtymology
From Middle English sour, from Old English sūr (“sour”), from Proto-West Germanic *sūr, from Proto-Germanic *sūraz (“sour”), from Proto-Indo-European *súHros (“sour”). Cognate with West Frisian soer, Dutch zuur (“sour”), Low German suur, German sauer (“sour”), Danish, Swedish and Norwegian sur, French sur (“sour”), Faroese súrur (“sour”), Icelandic súr (“sour, bitter”), Polish ser (“cheese”), Czech sýr (“cheese”), Slovak syr (“cheese”), Russian сырой (syroj, “raw”), Ukrainian сири́й (syrýj, “raw”), Old Church Slavonic сꙑръ (syrŭ, “moist, cheese”).
Definitions
Tasting of acidity.
- Lemons have a sour taste.
- All sour things, as vinegar, provoke appetite.
- A few types of molecules get sensed by receptors on the tongue. Protons coming off of acids ping receptors for "sour." Sugars get received as "sweet." Bitter, salty, and the proteinaceous flavor umami all set off their own neural cascades.
Made rancid by fermentation, etc.
- Don't drink that milk; it's turned sour.
Tasting or smelling rancid.
- His sour breath makes it unpleasing to talk to him.
›+ 18 more definitionsshow fewer
Hostile or unfriendly.
- He gave me a sour look.
- He was a scholar […] / Lofty and sour to them that loved him not, / But to those men that sought him sweet as summer.
Excessively acidic and thus infertile. (of soil)
- sour land
- a sour marsh
Containing excess sulfur. (of petroleum)
- sour gas smells like rotten eggs
Unfortunate or unfavorable.
- Let me embrace thee, sour adversity
Off-pitch, out of tune.
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 sweet/candy having a sharply sour taste.
- “You know I like them candies, especially the lemon sours.”
A sour or acid substance
A sour or acid substance; whatever produces a painful effect.
- For many Years of Sorrow can dispense; A Dram of Sweet is worth a Pound of Sour
The acidic solution used in souring fabric.
To make sour.
- Too much lemon juice will sour the recipe.
To become sour.
- So the sun's heat, with different powers, / Ripens the grape, the liquor sours.
To spoil or mar
To spoil or mar; to make disenchanted.
- To sour your happiness I must report, / The queen is dead.
- He was prudent and industrious, and so good a husbandman, that he might have led a very easy and comfortable life, had not an arrant vixen of a wife soured his domestic quiet.
To become disenchanted.
- We broke up after our relationship soured.
To make (soil) cold and unproductive.
- stagnant water , which tends to sour the soil
To macerate (lime) and render it fit for plaster or mortar.
To process (fabric) after bleaching, using hydrochloric acid or sulphuric acid to wash…
To process (fabric) after bleaching, using hydrochloric acid or sulphuric acid to wash out the lime.
The neighborhood
- synonymacetose
- synonymacetous
- synonymacid
- synonymacidulent
- synonymsour
- synonymtart
- antonymsweetantonym(s) of “soil, petroleum”
- neighborsourness
- neighborgustable
- neighborlemon
- neighborlemonish
- neighborlemonlike
- neighborlemony
- neighborlimelike
- neighborlimey
- neighborpicklesome
- neighborvinegarish
- neighborvinegarlike
- neighborvinegary
Derived
fine and dandy like sour candy, for sour apples, go sour, hot and sour soup, leave a sour taste in one's mouth, New York sour, oversour, sorrel, sourball, sour beer, sourbelly, sourberry, sourbread, sourbush, sour cherry, sour corn, sour cream, sour crude, sour diesel, sourdough, souren, sourfaced, sourfaux, sour fig, sourful, sour gas, sour gourd, sour grapes, sour grass, sourgrass, sour gum, sourhead, sourhearted, sour honey, sourish, sour krout, sourly, sour mash, sour milk, sour mix · +24 more
Vish — recursive loop
A definitional loop anchored at sour. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.
A definitional loop anchored at sour. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.
10 hops · closes at sour
curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA