bitter

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments (6)  · 
“
They are helpless and they are bitter--bitter in the useless kind of way that produces no great resolutions.

View all »
Definitions (45)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (12)

  1. adjective Having or being a taste that is sharp, acrid, and unpleasant.
  2. adjective Causing a sharply unpleasant, painful, or stinging sensation; harsh: enveloped in bitter cold; a bitter wind.
  3. adjective Difficult or distasteful to accept, admit, or bear: the bitter truth; bitter sorrow.
9 more from this dictionary »

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (17)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (4)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (12)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (50)

  • I had not thought the Martians would be able to survive here, so Bessie and I took our few possessions and struck out from the haven of San Francisco for the bitter wastes north of Juneau. —  F ;SF - vol 090 issue 03 - March 1996
  • The movement among the agricultural laborers, due to the energy and devotion of Joseph Arch, was beginning to be talked of in the fens, and bitter were the comments of the farmers on it, while I sympathised with the other side. —  Autobiographical Sketches
  • A bitter, ashy taste filled the back of her throat. —  Asimov'sSF,Jan2004
  • He regarded war—long, bitter, and dreadful—as almost sure to come. —  The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln
  • This became at last so marked that bitter, and even defiant, presentation of unpalatable truths regarding Russia, in the press inspired from the chancery, seemed the usual form in which all Russian statesmen, and especially members of the imperial house, were welcomed in Berlin. —  Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White, V1
More examples »
 

Tags

bitter hasn't been tagged yet.

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Stats

This word has been looked up 201 times.

stop updating
On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Add a related word »
Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

terrible ·  hot ·  serious ·  keen ·  furious ·  vicious

Used in the same contextWord Family

bitter:   bitterest ·  bitters
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (4)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English, from Old English; see bheid- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (3)

  1. from Middle English bitter, biter, from Anglo-Saxon biter, bitor (= Old Saxon bittar = D. Middle Low German Low German bitter = Old High German bittar, Middle High German G. bitter = Icelandic bitr = Swedish Danish bitter = Gothic (Moesogothic) (with irreg. ai for i) baitrs), bitter, from bītan, bite: see bite.
  2. from Middle English biteren, from Anglo-Saxon biterian (= Old High German bittarēn, Middle High German G. bittern), from biter, bitter: see bitter, a.
  3. from bitt + -er.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »
/ˈbɪtər/
by American Heritage

Charts
frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

You can expect to see this word about twice a week.

Recently looked up

smarmy · ejaculation · lye · Teach · periwig

Recent Favorites

pygopagus · sanglant · Astacus · sweetbread · qualms

Recent Pronunciations

Der dicke Dachdecker deckte dir dein Dach, drum dank dem dicken Dachdecker, dass der dicke Dachdecker dir dein Dach deckte. · weitläufig · und wenn sie nicht gestorben sind, so leben sie noch heute · redescheu · selbstverständlich