Word.ws English Dictionary

acetous

/ˈæ.sɪ.təs/

acetous adjective: having a sour taste; sour; acid.

Adjective

acetous (comparative more acetous, superlative most acetous)

  1. Having a sour taste; sour; acid.
    • an acetous spirit1680, Robert Boyle, Experiments and Notes about the Producibleness of Chemical Principles
    • a liquid of an acetous kind1778, Robert Lowth, “Notes on Isaiah”, in Isaiah, a New Translation
  2. Causing, or connected with, acetification
    • acetous fermentation

Forms of acetous

comparativemore acetous
superlativemost acetous

Origin of acetous

From Latin acētum (“vinegar”) + -ous, the former from aceō (“to be sour”).

Words formed from acetous

  • a name formerly given to vinegar

Phrases with acetous

Questions about acetous

What does acetous mean?
Acetous means having a sour taste; sour; acid.
What part of speech is acetous?
Acetous is an adjective.
How do you pronounce acetous?
Acetous is pronounced /ˈæ.sɪ.təs/.

Words near acetous in the dictionary

  1. acetotoluides
  2. acetotoluidide
  3. acetotoluidides
  4. acetotrophic
  5. acetotrophy
  6. acetous
  7. acetous acid
  8. acetovanillone
  9. acetoveratrone
  10. acetowhite
  11. acetowhitening

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: acetous (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-acetous-1.ogg.

Cite this entry: “acetous.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/acetous. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.