Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use bitterness in a sentence

36 example sentences · noun

Bitterness means the quality of having a bitter taste. Example: “She kept her bitterness about her mistreatment for the rest of her life.”

Examples of bitterness by meaning

nounThe quality of feeling bitter; acrimony, resentment; the quality of exhibiting such feelings.

  • the bitterness of his words
  • She kept her bitterness about her mistreatment for the rest of her life.
  • She suspected that during the summer her father had mentioned Brian’s windfall to Billy and that father and son had then traded snidenesses and bitternesses about the W—— Corporation and bourgeois Robin and leisure-class Brian.2001, Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections

nounThe quality of eliciting a bitter, humiliating or harsh feeling.

  • Nothing could assuage the bitterness of their defeat.

nounHarsh cold.

  • The bitterness of the winter caught us all by surprise.

More sentences with bitterness

  • You've got to cook out the spices to get rid of the bitterness.From the entry cook out
  • Some of her father's ways still triggered flutters of that old burning resentment in her. She spoke of him with a flutter of her bitterness that others could sense.From the entry flutter
  • He counseled his daughter to resist the lure of hatred and bitterness.2019, Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys, Fleet, page 10. From the entry counsel
  • While the flavor of a rabe echoes the plant, any spiciness or bitterness is generally softer.2017, Joshua McFadden, Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables, page 313. From the entry rabe
  • As we can all guess correctly, bitterness was obtained from plants like the ampalaya.2016, Micky Fenix, “What the early Filipinos ate at the time of the Spaniards”, in Philippine Daily Inquirer. From the entry ampalaya
  • Then soak them again, changing the water every day for several weeks until the bitterness is gone.2010, Ken Albala, Rosanna Nafziger Henderson, The Lost Art of Real Cooking: Rediscovering the Pleasures of Traditional Food One Recipe at…. From the entry lupin
  • Was this vestigial bitterness from years of Aussie humiliations in his own career?2008, William Buckland, Pommies: England Cricket Through an Australian Lens, Troubador Publishing Ltd, page 15. From the entry Pommy-basher
  • There is absolutely no hint of bitterness — just pure, milk chocolaty flavor.2008 January 12, Lucy Baker, “Cuckoo for cocoa: GO treks across the borough for the best mugs of hot chocolate”, in The Brooklyn Paper…. From the entry milk chocolaty
  • Was he the reason for the bitterness that seemed to marble her character?1993, Susan Napier, Winter of Dreams, page 52. From the entry marble
  • The fact that he is drinking lemon is, therefore, an image of the bitterness of his life.1989, David Johnston, “Notes”, in Federico García Lorca, translated by David Johnston, Blood Wedding, London: Hodder & Stoughton…. From the entry lemon
  • His tone was cold and ironical; its bitterness but reflecting the terrible disappointment he had suffered.1913 January–May, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Gods of Mars”, in The All-Story, New York, N.Y.: Frank A. Munsey Co., →OCLC; republished as…. From the entry ironical
  • My thoughts turned, inconsequently, out of their channel of bitterness, to fresh, desperate questionings.1907, William Hope Hodgson, The House on the Borderland. From the entry inconsequently
  • Naringin is the main cause of bitterness in some citrus fruits and is converted into naringenin in the body.2013, Kimberly Mueller, Josh Hingst, The Athlete's Guide to Sports Supplements, unnumbered page. From the entry naringin
  • Tannins give red wine a chompy, dry bitterness—think oversteeped tea—that can be off-putting when a wine is young.2012, Stanley Tucci, Joan Tucci, Gianni Scappin, The Tucci Cookbook, page 31. From the entry chompy
  • He was a natural lieutenant, not a leader, and it was a fact he accepted with neither bitterness nor regret.2006 October, credited to Robert Ludlum, chapter 15, in The Bancroft Strategy, New York, N.Y.: St. Martin’s Press, →ISBN, page 264. From the entry could not get elected dogcatcher
  • The pea eggplants impart a delicious bitterness to the relish.2002, David Thompson, Thai Food, Random House Digital, Inc., →ISBN, page 195. From the entry pea eggplant
  • Like chicory and Belgian endive, escarole’s bitterness is its attraction.2001, “Vegetables”, in Susan Westmoreland, editor, The Good Housekeeping Cookbook, New York, N.Y.: Hearst Books, →ISBN, page 432, column 2. From the entry escarole
  • I performed several experiments to determine the effect of the blowoff method of fermentation on bitterness, protein, and higher alcohols.1997, Al Korzonas, Homebrewing, page 347. From the entry blowoff
  • It was a vote, Woodfoot thought, tasting the pleasant bitterness of the kinnekinnic, a vote on what happened to the Indian.1954, Milton Lott, The Last Hunt, page 108. From the entry kinnekinnic
  • I felt a certain shallow contempt for the emotionalism, the unreasoning bitterness and the actless anger of the soapbox radicals.1951, J. Saunders Redding, On Being Negro in America, essay. From the entry actless
  • So with the fruit, the rich flavor of the white oak acorns is inviting, the meracious bitterness of the others is repellent.2011, Winthrop Packard, Forests and Fields Through the Year, page 343. From the entry meracious
  • And they could hold the bitterness.1996, Kevin Corrigan Kearns, Dublin Pub Life and Lore: An Oral History, page 216. From the entry scrob
  • It was quite flavourless, except that, where its innards had been imperfectly removed, silver traces of roe gave it an unpleasant bitterness.1988, Alan Hollinghurst, The Swimming-Pool Library, paperback edition, London: Penguin Books, →ISBN, page 40. From the entry roe
  • She had looked at the girl as she took the karpas and when her face changed she thought it must be the bitterness.1985, Peter Carey, Illywhacker, Faber and Faber, published 2003, page 243. From the entry karpas
  • The plot traces the shock, shame, bitterness and desperation of a singularly nice young widow and mother unable to prove her marriage after an elopment.1957 December 14, “'Eighteen and Anxious' Opens at Paramount”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN…. From the entry elopment
  • A small proportion of licorice is preferably included for the purpose of recounteracting any bitterness which may be due to the presence of the grains.1927, LA Negly, PS Black, Preparing cereal-beverage compounds (US Patent 1,631,830). From the entry recounteract
  • Oh, there was no warmth in the sunlight, and the sky was a drabby gray, and he was filled with bitterness unutterable.1921, William Patterson White, The Heart of the Range. From the entry drabby
  • Though you can find escarole in most grocery stores, many people don't take advantage of it, perhaps because of its slight bitterness (which dissipates when cooked).2016 August, Lucinda Scala Quinn, “Killer Salads”, in Mad Hungry Family: 120 Essential Recipes to Feed the Whole Crew, New York, N.Y.…. From the entry escarole
  • Bitter and salty foods often go very well together and here the slight bitterness of rapini (also known as broccoli rabe) complements the savoriness of pork sausage.2012, Giuliano Hazan, Giuliano Hazan's Thirty Minute Pasta: 100 Quick and Easy Recipes, Open Road Media, →ISBN. From the entry rapini
  • Only through a deeper recognition of the meaning of divine judgment can we escape the pitfalls of an overblithe optimism in good times and faith-destroying bitterness in evil days.2010, Rebekah Miles, Georgia Harkness: The Remaking of a Liberal Theologian, page 162. From the entry overblithe
  • Those who subscribe to those “zombie ideas” are “suffering from ressentiment – a witches’ brew of resentment, bitterness, and rage that is causing them to hold mistaken values,” Andreessen wrote.2024 December 5, Brian Fung, “Trump’s latest nominees are a gift to his wealthiest crypto boosters”, in CNN Business, archived from the…. From the entry rage

Meaning of bitterness

  1. noun The quality of having a bitter taste.
  2. noun The quality of feeling bitter; acrimony, resentment; the quality of exhibiting such feelings.
  3. noun The quality of eliciting a bitter, humiliating or harsh feeling.

Full definition of bitterness

Questions about bitterness in a sentence

How do you use bitterness in a sentence?
Bitterness is used as a noun. For example: “She kept her bitterness about her mistreatment for the rest of her life.”
What is a short sentence with bitterness?
“the bitterness of his words”
What does bitterness mean?
Bitterness means the quality of having a bitter taste.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bitterness (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this page: “How to use bitterness in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/bitterness. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.