Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Having the disagreeable odor or taste of decomposing oils or fats; rank.
- adj. Repugnant; nasty: rancid remarks.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Rankly offensive to the senses; having a tainted smell or taste; fetid or soured from chemical change.
- Repulsive to the moral sense; disgusting; loathsome.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Having a rank smell or taste, from chemical change or decomposition; musty.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. (used of decomposing oils or fats) having a rank smell or taste usually due to a chemical change or decomposition
- adj. smelling of fermentation or staleness
Etymologies
- From Latin rancidus ("stinking, rank, rancid, offensive"), from ranceō ("to stink") (sense in Middle Latin), from whence also English rancor, in Latin used only in present participle rancens ("stinking"). (Wiktionary)
- Latin rancidus, from rancēre, to stink, be rotten. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“But if the expressions of opinion are in rancid tones, then just like the stench of carion, people are turned away.”
“In the following installments I will explore the meat of his argument (best described as rancid and decaying), which centered on criticism of various hominid fossils and a few arguments mirroring those presented by Jonathan Wells 'book”
“Why is it that when progressives talk about the benefits our country could reap from say, investing in mass transit, or overhauling our school lunch program so that it might actually nourish our kids instead of poison them, too many folks on the right start to spew the kind of rancid rhetoric I've quoted here?”
“Cocoa-butter in itself is quite harmless -- usually non-irritating (unless it is "rancid") -- and it gives some mechanical protection, in the same way as vaseline or any kind of fat or oil would do, provided, of course, it is in the right place to catch and entangle the spermatazoa and thus prevent their uniting with the ovum.”
“A pungent reek of some kind of rancid fat or oil assailed his nostrils.”
“She was very dirty and smelt abominably of some kind of rancid oil.”
“In some animals it may be produced by momentary contact; it descends to other animals of various descriptions; there is no doubt that it is occasionally hereditary: it is generated by effluvia of many various kinds; almost every kind of rancid or stimulating food is the parent of it.”
“Then they like to hurl packets of smelly foods such as rancid butter and other food items at the fishermen.”
“But ... the only people who believe this kind of rancid propaganda .... are the FOX Addicts.”
“Sensory tests showed that these failed samples had defective flavors such as rancid, fusty, and musty," concluded the study.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘rancid’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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allover
reintegrate, spight, surveillant, harmonize, Colophon, workplace, bigoted, unsighted, bridgework, salutation, voltmeter, octane and 159 more...
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Describing the Taste of Foods
yummy, zesty, piquant, pungent, sharp, spicy, poignant, delicious, ambrosial, appetizing, delectable, heavenly and 194 more...
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macabre
words associated with the macabre & horror.
( open list, randomness )
more:
http://www.wordnik.co...ghastly, grisly, culeus, silly, gruesome, horrid, morbid, angelic, shocking, hideous, ghoulish, frightful and 136 more...
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Band or Brand?
Band names that are also common words or phrases.
genesis, who, beatles, journey, germs, sublime, doors, cars, nirvana, bangles, tool, pixies and 192 more...
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common UA vocab. in US
Interesting, there is a traditional vocabulary of an Ukrainian, that differs from vocabulary of average American. It would be nice to explore it.
jackdaw, incongruous, cassock, vivid, magpie, humdrum, amongst, wonder, wandering, wheedling, wheedle, osseous and 368 more...
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food collection
bread, peel, pot, chorizo, Filet, olive, fill, Phyllo, dough, bake, mat, pinot and 988 more...
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vocab 3
predilection, vagrant, stint, insinuate, incendiary, heedless, nonchalant, writhe, queasy, incandescest, hauteur, castigate and 24 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1908 more...
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Favorites
disparage, partisan, cupidity, hokum, tussle, odious, dastardly, overture, plane, chronic, peering, peer and 328 more...
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Personal Vocabulary List
All my favourite words that I come across!
veritable, incongruence, rigamorole, letcherous, revolting, repulsive, reputrid, rapatious, forays, guise, placate, paradigm and 1162 more...
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slumry's Words
cattywampus, ingratiate, lackadaisical, exactitude, exfoliate, fulminate, circumnavigation, circuitous, debride, sidle, sequester, chicory and 1002 more...
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newGRE
mostly from magoosh
imbue, verge on, nonchalant, deliberate, timorous, futile, provisional, dissect, checked, tinged, alluring, visionary and 1046 more...
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NTDW1
template, modal, sublingual, tandem, polycentric, septuagenarian, token, irrevocable, denotive, augural, aberrant, phlebotomy and 1188 more...
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GRE vocab
martinet, churlish, polyglot, aplomb, dissembler, histrionics, prevarication, ignominy, impugn, fastidious, trenchant, perfunctory and 155 more...
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My GRE
concomitant, mendacity, corollary, mandate, ascertain, exacerbate, substantiate, perennial, exemplify, hegemony, acrimonious, repertoire and 653 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for rancid.
sonofgroucho There is something intrinsically unpleasant about this word! Jan 29, 2008