Acidulous

//əˈsɪdjʊləs// adj

adj ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Slightly sour; subacid; sourish.

    "the hard, acidulous, metallic tincture of the spring"

  2. 2
    Sharp; caustic. figuratively

    "He talked with acidulous tolerance of the exalted personages who had sent Ashenden to X."

  3. 3
    Containing carbonic acid.

    "acidulous mineral waters"

Adjective
  1. 1
    being sour to the taste wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
acidulentacerbacerbateacerbicaceticacetose

Example

More examples

"the hard, acidulous, metallic tincture of the spring"

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin acidulus (“sourish, acidulous”), diminutive of acidus (“sour, acid”). See acid.

Related phrases

carbonic acid

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.