Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Sourness or acidness of taste, character, or tone.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Sourness, with roughness or astringency of taste.
  • noun Poignancy or severity.
  • noun Harshness or severity, as of temper or expression.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Sourness of taste, with bitterness and astringency, like that of unripe fruit.
  • noun Harshness, bitterness, or severity.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Sourness of taste, with bitterness and astringency, like that of unripe fruit.
  • noun Harshness, bitterness, or severity; as, acerbity of temper, of language, of pain

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a rough and bitter manner
  • noun a sharp bitterness
  • noun a sharp sour taste

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French acerbité, from Latin acerbitās ("acerbity; harshness"), from acerbus ("bitter"). See acerb.

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