bittersweet
/ˈbɪtɚˌswit/
bittersweet adjective: both bitter and sweet.
Adjective
bittersweet (comparative more bittersweet, superlative most bittersweet)
- Both bitter and sweet.
- bittersweet chocolate
- The dark green mooncake is loaded with matcha-infused salted egg yolk custard, which gives a bittersweet taste.2016 August 21, Kenneth Goh, “Roll over, chocolate lava cakes — here come lava mooncakes”, in The Straits Times
- Expressing contrasting emotions of pain and pleasure.
- The break-up was very bittersweet; they both hurt to end it, but were glad it was over.
- […] sensations of this kind, however delicious, are, at their first recognition, of a very tumultuous nature, and have very little of the opiate in them. They were, moreover, in the present case, embittered with certain circumstances, which being mixed with sweeter ingredients, tended altogether to...1749, Henry Fielding, chapter III, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC
- Of bittersweet color (see the noun section, below).
Noun
bittersweet (countable and uncountable, plural bittersweets)
- Bittersweet nightshade (Solanum dulcamara).
- Bitter ſweete bringeth foorth wooddie ſtalks as doth the Vine, parted into many ſlender creeping braunches, by which it climeth and taketh holde of hedges and ſhrubbes next vnto it. […] Bitter ſweet doth grow in moiſt places about ditches, riuers, and hedges, almoſt euery where.1597, John Gerarde [i.e., John Gerard], “Of Bitter Sweete, or Woode Nightshade”, in The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes. […], London: […] Edm[und] Bollifant, for Bonham and Iohn Norton...
- Bittersweetness.
- I had once before visited these three villages, Skedans, Tanoo and Cumshewa. The bitter-sweet of their overwhelming loneliness created a longing to return to them.1941, Emily Carr, chapter 18, in Klee Wyck
- A vine, of the genus Celastrus, having small orange fruit that open to reveal red seeds.
- Over by the creek-bed scarlet-flamed sumac shouldered the silver-green of the willows, and orange-colored bittersweet crept through the tangle of wild plums.1935, Bess Streeter Aldrich, chapter 43, in Spring Came on Forever
- A variety of apple with a bittersweet taste.
- "They had a good crop of bitter-sweets, they couldn’t grind them all"—nodding towards an orchard where some heaps of apples had been left lying ever since the ingathering.1886 May – 1887 April, Thomas Hardy, chapter VI, in The Woodlanders […], volume I, London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., published 1887, →OCLC, page 99
- Any variety of clam in the family Glycymerididae
- A pinkish-orange color. Any color in between scarlet and orange.
bittersweet meaning in Tamil, Bengali, Sinhala and Tagalog
bittersweet in Tamil
- கசப்பினிப்பு, நமது பூமியில் காணப்படும், தாவரங்களில் ஒன்றாகும்
bittersweet in Bengali
- both bitter and sweet
- বিটারসুইট biṭarśuiṭ
bittersweet in Sinhala
- both bitter and sweet
- තිත්ත titta
bittersweet in Tagalog
- both bitter and sweet
- agridulse, matamis na mapait
More languagesFewer languages
- bittersweet in Arabic
- حُلْو وَمُرّ ḥulw wamurr, حُلْوَة وَمُرَّة
- bittersweet in Indonesian
- pahit manis
- bittersweet in Persian
- تلخ و شیرین talx-o-širin
- bittersweet in Vietnamese
- cay đắng ngọt ngào
Examples of bittersweet in a sentence
- The chocolate that I prefer for most recipes for this book is bittersweet chocolate pistoles.
- Prized for its bright yellow, bittersweet flesh, Mao Shan Wang was a best-selling durian this year.
- This new sense of self, exhilarating as it was, also carries a bittersweet tinge for most members.
Forms of bittersweet
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more bittersweet |
| superlative | most bittersweet |
| alternative form | bitter-sweet |
| Noun | |
| plural | bittersweets |
Origin of bittersweet
From Middle English bitterswete, biterswete, equivalent to bitter + sweet. Cognate with Saterland Frisian bitterswäit (“bittersweet”), West Frisian bittersoet (“bittersweet”), Dutch bitterzoet (“bittersweet”), German bittersüß (“bittersweet”), Danish bittersød (“bittersweet”), Swedish bittersöt (“bittersweet”).
Words formed from bittersweet
- bittersweetly
- bittersweetness
- American bittersweet
- oriental bittersweet
Words that rhyme with bittersweet
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- entreat
- fleet
- retreat
- treat
- complete
- conceit
- repeat
- concrete
- discrete
- suite
- cheat
- cleat
- deceit
- greet
- unseat
- compete
- defeat
- delete
- effete
- elite
- escheat
- indiscrete
- leet
- pleat
- skeet
- sleet
- accrete
- beet
- bleat
- gleet
- ifrit
- incomplete
- overeat
- overheat
- petite
- replete
- superheat
- teat
- tweet
- wheat
- yeet
- Bereshit
- Bow Street
- Crete
- discreet
- downbeat
- jeet
- keet
Questions about bittersweet
- What does bittersweet mean?
- Bittersweet means both bitter and sweet.
- What is bittersweet in Tamil?
- Bittersweet in Tamil is கசப்பினிப்பு, நமது பூமியில் காணப்படும், தாவரங்களில் ஒன்றாகும். See Bittersweet meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is bittersweet?
- Bittersweet can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce bittersweet?
- Bittersweet is pronounced /ˈbɪtɚˌswit/ (US).
Words near bittersweet in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: bittersweet (page history and authors); bittersweet (Tamil Wiktionary) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-bittersweet.wav.
Cite this entry: “bittersweet.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bittersweet. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.