Having an acid or sharp, biting taste, like vinegar, and the juices of most unripe fruits; acid; tart. "All sour things, as vinegar, provoke appetite."
2.
Changed, as by keeping, so as to be acid, rancid, or musty, turned.
3.
Disagreeable; unpleasant; hence; cross; crabbed; peevish; morose; as, a man of a sour temper; a sour reply."A sour countenance.""He was a scholar... Lofty and sour to them that loved him not, But to those men that sought him sweet as summer."
4.
Afflictive; painful. "Sour adversity."
5.
Cold and unproductive; as, sour land; a sour marsh.
Sour dock (Bot.), sorrel.
Sour gourd (Bot.), the gourdlike fruit Adansonia Gregorii, and Adansonia digitata; also, either of the trees bearing this fruit. See Adansonia.
Sour plum (Bot.), the edible acid fruit of an Australian tree (Owenia venosa); also, the tree itself, which furnished a hard reddish wood used by wheelwrights.
To cause to become sour; to cause to turn from sweet to sour; as, exposure to the air sours many substances. "So the sun's heat, with different powers, Ripens the grape, the liquor sours."
2.
To make cold and unproductive, as soil.
3.
To make unhappy, uneasy, or less agreeable. "To sour your happiness I must report, The queen is dead."
4.
To cause or permit to become harsh or unkindly. "Souring his cheeks.""Pride had not sour'd nor wrath debased my heart."
5.
To macerate, and render fit for plaster or mortar; as, to sour lime for business purposes.
Sour v. i. (past & past part. soured; pres. part. souring) To become sour; to turn from sweet to sour; as, milk soon sours in hot weather; a kind temper sometimes sours in adversity."They keep out melancholy from the virtuous, and hinder the hatred of vice from souring into severity."
noun
Sour n. A sour or acid substance; whatever produces a painful effect.
... me. They sung. The white people's yard was jus' full of them playing 'Yankee Doodle' and 'Hang Jeff Davis on a Sour Apple Tree.' ... — Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration Read full book for free!
... number of the Vulpina (Riparia) grapes introduced for their roots were valuable as direct producers for wines. The fruits of this species are too small and too sour for dessert, but they are free from the disagreeable tastes and aromas of some of our native grapes and, therefore, make very good wines. The best known of the varieties of this species is the Clinton, which is generally thought to have originated ... — Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick Read full book for free!
... they pass by, pluck Casca by the sleeve; And he will, after his sour fashion, tell you 180 What hath proceeded worthy ... — The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare Read full book for free!
... powers to become a metaphysician. There is no discipline which so well consists with solitude, none which so instantly enfranchises the mind from the tyranny of mean self-interest or vain and envious polemics. Men do not grow sour and quarrelsome about the Absolute: everything that is polemical is inspired, as Michelet once said, by some temporal and momentary interest. The man who has climbed to the Idalian spring comes down benevolent. He does not grudge this toiling ant his grain, that ... — Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith Read full book for free!
... of the above fruits, as well as those of spicebush, sour gum, cherries, grapes, blackberries. The flicker devours most of the fruits listed for the two woodpeckers named above, also hackberry, black alder, green brier, bayberries. A number of other woodpeckers possess habits much the same as the three above named. The ... — Seed Dispersal • William J. Beal Read full book for free!
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