Acrid
adj ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 Sharp and harsh, or bitter and not to the taste.
"Since the mid-1980s, when Indonesia first began to clear its bountiful forests on an industrial scale in favour of lucrative palm-oil plantations, “haze” has become an almost annual occurrence in South-East Asia. The cheapest way to clear logged woodland is to burn it, producing an acrid cloud of foul white smoke that, carried by the wind, can cover hundreds, or even thousands, of square miles."
- 2 Causing heat and irritation.
"The bombardier beetle sprays acrid secretions to defend itself."
- 3 Caustic; bitter; bitterly irritating. figuratively
"That man has an acrid temper."
- 1 harsh or corrosive in tone wordnet
- 2 strong and sharp wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"Please don't burn the food this time. I like it better without an acrid taste."
Etymology
From Latin ācris, from ācer (“sharp”); probably assimilated in form to acid. Compare eager.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.