acerbity

English

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA: /əˈsɜːbɪti/, X-SAMPA: /@"s3:bIti/

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• (US) IPA: /əˈsɝbɪdi/, X-SAMPA: /@"s3`bIdi/

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Noun

acerbity (plural acerbities)

1. Sourness of taste, with bitterness and astringency, like that of unripe fruit.
2. Harshness, bitterness, or severity; as, acerbity of temper, of language, of pain.
   • 1905, Baroness Emmuska Orczy, chapter 1, The Case of Miss Elliott^[1]:

     “Well ?” I repeated with some acerbity. I had been wondering for the last ten minutes how many more knots he would manage to make in that same bit of string before he actually started undoing them again.

Translations

sourness

• Bulgarian: стипчивост (bg) (stipčivost), тръпчивост (bg) (trǎpčivost)
• French: acerbité (fr) f
• German: Sauerkeit (de) f

• Latin: acerbitās (la) f
• Swedish: syrlighet (sv)

harshness

• Bulgarian: саркастичност (bg) (sarkastičnost)
• French: acerbité (fr) f
• German: Bitterkeit (de) f

• Latin: acerbitās (la) f
• Swedish: bitterhet (sv)

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.

Translations to be checked

• French: amertume f
• Interlingua: acerbitate

• Italian: amarezza f
• Spanish: amargura f

References

• acerbity in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913