sour

Alternative forms

• (obsolete) sowr

Etymology

From Middle English sour, from Old English sūr (“sour”), from Proto-Germanic *sūraz (“sour”), from Proto-Indo-European *suH-ro- (“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”).

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈsaʊ(ə)ɹ/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈsaʊə/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aʊə(ɹ)

Adjective

sour (comparative sourer, superlative sourest)

1. Having an acidic, sharp or tangy taste.

   Lemons have a sour taste.

   • Francis Bacon

     All sour things, as vinegar, provoke appetite.

   • 2018 May 16, Adam Rogers, Wired, "The Fundamental Nihilism of Yanny vs. Laurel":

     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.

2. Made rancid by fermentation, etc.

   sour milk

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

3. Tasting or smelling rancid.

   sour stink

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

4. Peevish or bad-tempered.

   He gave me a sour look.

   • Shakespeare

     He was a scholar […] / Lofty and sour to them that loved him not, / But to those men that sought him sweet as summer.

5. (of soil) Excessively acidic and thus infertile.

   sour land

   a sour marsh

6. (of petroleum) Containing excess sulfur.

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

7. Unfortunate or unfavorable.
   • Shakespeare

     sour adversity

   • 2011 October 1, Phil Dawkes, “Sunderland 2 - 2 West Brom”, in BBC Sport‎:

     The result may not quite give the Wearsiders a sweet ending to what has been a sour week, following allegations of sexual assault and drug possession against defender Titus Bramble, but it does at least demonstrate that their spirit remains strong in the face of adversity.

8. (music) Off-pitch, out of tune.
   • 2010, Aniruddh D. Patel, Music, Language, and the Brain, page 201:

     Unlike what the name implies, there is nothing inherently wrong with a sour note: It is perfectly well-tuned note that would sound normal in another context (and which presumably would not sound sour to someone unfamiliar with tonal music).

Noun

sour (countable and uncountable, plural sours)

1. The sensation of a sour taste.

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

2. A drink made with whiskey, lemon or lime juice and sugar.

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

3. (by extension) Any cocktail containing lemon or lime juice.
4. A sour or acid substance; whatever produces a painful effect.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Edmund Spenser to this entry?)

Verb

sour (third-person singular simple present sours, present participle souring, simple past and past participle soured)

1. (transitive) To make sour.

   Too much lemon juice will sour the recipe.

2. (intransitive) To become sour.
   • Jonathan Swift

     So the sun's heat, with different powers, / Ripens the grape, the liquor sours.

3. (transitive) To spoil or mar; to make disenchanted.
   • Shakespeare

     To sour your happiness I must report, / The queen is dead.

   • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, London: A[ndrew] Millar, OCLC 928184292:

     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.

4. (intransitive) To become disenchanted.

   We broke up after our relationship soured.

5. (transitive) To make (soil) cold and unproductive.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Mortimer to this entry?)

6. To macerate (lime) and render it fit for plaster or mortar.

Anagrams

• Ruso, ours

Adjective

sour (feminine singular soure, masculine plural sours, feminine plural soures)

1. Eye dialect spelling of sûr.

Preposition

sour

1. Eye dialect spelling of sur.

Etymology 1

From Old English sūr, from Proto-Germanic *sūraz.

Etymology 2

From Old French essorer.

Alternative forms

• (Rumantsch Grischun, Sursilvan, Sutsilvan, Surmiran) sora

Etymology

From Latin soror, from Proto-Indo-European *swésōr.

Noun

sour f (plural sours)

1. (Puter, Vallader) sister