Word.ws English Dictionary

sour

Syllables: sou·r[ˈsɑːə]UK/ˈsaʊ.ə/

sour adjective: tasting of acidity.

Adjective

sour (comparative sourer, superlative sourest)

  1. Tasting of acidity.
    • Lemons have a sour taste.
    • All sour things, as vinegar, provoke appetite.1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “(please specify the page, or |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p]rinted...
  2. Made rancid by fermentation, etc.
    • Don't drink that milk; it's turned sour.
  3. Tasting or smelling rancid.
    • His sour breath makes it unpleasing to talk to him.
  4. Hostile or unfriendly.
    • He gave me a sour look.
    • He was a scholar […] / Lofty and sour to them that loved him not, / But to those men that sought him sweet as summer.c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...
  5. Excessively acidic and thus infertile. (of soil)
    • sour land
    • a sour marsh
  6. Containing excess sulfur. (of petroleum)
    • sour gas smells like rotten eggs
  7. Unfortunate or unfavorable.
    • Let me embrace thee, sour adversity1613 (date written), William Shakespeare, [John Fletcher], “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio)...
    • The result may not quite give the Wearsiders a sweet ending to what has been a sour week, following allegations of sexual assault and drug possession against defender Titus Bramble, but it does at least demonstrate that their spirit remains strong in the face of adversity.2011 October 1, Phil Dawkes, “Sunderland 2 - 2 West Brom”, in BBC Sport
  8. Off-pitch, out of tune.
    • Unlike what the name implies, there is nothing inherently wrong with a sour note: It is perfectly well-tuned note that would sound normal in another context (and which presumably would not sound sour to someone unfamiliar with tonal music).2010, Aniruddh D. Patel, Music, Language, and the Brain, page 201

Noun

sour (countable and uncountable, plural sours)

  1. The sensation of a sour taste.
  2. A drink made with whiskey, lemon or lime juice and sugar.
  3. (broadly) Any cocktail containing lemon or lime juice.
  4. A sweet/candy having a sharply sour taste.
    • “You know I like them candies, especially the lemon sours.”2022, Michael N. Riley, ARCH BOOK I, page 78
  5. A sour or acid substance; whatever produces a painful effect.
    • For many Years of Sorrow can dispense;
      A Dram of Sweet is worth a Pound of Sour1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
  6. The acidic solution used in souring fabric.

Verb

sour (third-person singular simple present sours, present participle souring, simple past and past participle soured)

  1. (transitive) To make sour.
    • Too much lemon juice will sour the recipe.
  2. (intransitive) To become sour.
    • So the sun's heat, with different powers, / Ripens the grape, the liquor sours.1720, Jonathan Swift, To Stella, on transcribing my Poems
  3. (transitive) To spoil or mar; to make disenchanted.
    • To sour your happiness I must report, / The queen is dead.1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...
    • He was prudent and industrious, and so good a husbandman, that he might have led a very easy and comfortable life, had not an arrant vixen of a wife soured his domestic quiet.1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC
  4. (intransitive) To become disenchanted.
    • We broke up after our relationship soured.
  5. (transitive) To make (soil) cold and unproductive.
    • stagnant water , which tends to sour the soil1832, Joseph Harrison, Sir Joseph Paxton, The Horticultural Register, page 396
  6. To macerate (lime) and render it fit for plaster or mortar.
  7. (transitive) To process (fabric) after bleaching, using hydrochloric acid or sulphuric acid to wash out the lime.

sour meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

sour in Hindi

having an acidic, sharp or tangy taste
खट्टा khaṭṭā

sour in Tamil

புளிப்பாக

sour in Marathi

having an acidic, sharp or tangy taste
आंबट āmbaṭ

sour in Urdu

having an acidic, sharp or tangy taste
کھٹا khaṭṭā
More languagesFewer languages
sour in Bengali
খাট্টা khaṭṭa, চুকা cuka, টেঙ্গা ṭeṅga
sour in Telugu
పులుపు pulupu
sour in Malayalam
പുളി puḷi, പുളിക്കുക puḷikkuka
sour in Kannada
ಹುಳಿ huḷi, ಪುಳಿ puḷi
sour in Punjabi
ਖੱਟਾ khaṭṭā
sour in Gujarati
ખાટું khāṭũ, અમ્લ amla
sour in Odia
ଆମ୍ବିଳିଆ āmbiḷiā
sour in Sanskrit
अम्ल amla, खट्ट khaṭṭa, चुक्र cukra
sour in Assamese
টেঙা teṅa
sour in Nepali
अमिलो amilo
sour in Pashto
ترش
sour in Tagalog
maasim, asim
sour in Arabic
حَامِض ḥāmiḍ
sour in Malay
asam, masam
sour in Indonesian
diasami, asam
sour in Persian
ترش torš
sour in Thai
เปรี้ยว bprîao, ส้ม sôm
sour in Vietnamese
chua
sour in Myanmar
ချဉ် hkyany

Examples of sour in a sentence

  • Empty stomachs lead to acidity and leave a sour taste in the mouth.
  • We're going to harvest day and night, because the weather is about to turn sour.
  • I think his comments about that new car are just sour grapes because he can't afford it.

All 40 example sentences with sour

Synonyms of sour

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of sour

Forms of sour

Adjective
comparativesourer
superlativesourest
alternative form (obsolete)sower
alternative form (obsolete)sowre
Noun
pluralsours
Verb
third-person singular presentsours
present participlesouring
past participlesoured
pastsoured
second-person singular present (archaic)sourest
second-person singular past (archaic)souredst
third-person singular present (archaic)soureth

Past tense of sour: soured

Origin of sour

From Middle English sour, from Old English sūr (“sour”), from Proto-West Germanic *sūr, from Proto-Germanic *sūraz (“sour”), from Proto-Indo-European *súHros (“sour”). Cognate with West Frisian soer, Dutch zuur (“sour”), Low German suur, German sauer (“sour”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish sur (“sour”), French sur (“sour”), Faroese súrur (“sour”), Icelandic súr (“sour, bitter”), Polish ser (“cheese”), Czech sýr (“cheese”), Slovak syr (“cheese”), Russian сырой (syroj, “raw”), Ukrainian сири́й (syrýj, “raw”), Old Church Slavonic сꙑръ (syrŭ, “moist, cheese”).

Words formed from sour

Phrases with sour

24 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with sour

4 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about sour

What does sour mean?
Sour means tasting of acidity.
What is sour in Hindi?
Sour in Hindi is खट्टा (khaṭṭā). See Sour meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is sour?
Sour can be an adjective, a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce sour?
Sour is pronounced /ˈsaʊ.ə/ (UK).

Words near sour in the dictionary

  1. soupy
  2. soupçon
  3. soupçons
  4. souq
  5. souqs
  6. sour
  7. sour beer
  8. sour beers
  9. sour bread
  10. sour breads
  11. sour cherries

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sour (page history and authors); sour (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); പുളി (Malayalam) (page history and authors); ಪುಳಿ (Kannada) (page history and authors); ਖੱਟਾ (Punjabi) (page history and authors); અમ્લ (Gujarati) (page history and authors); अम्ल (Sanskrit) (page history and authors); अमिलो (Nepali) (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-sour.ogg.

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