Acidity is the degree to which something is sharp and sour. High acidity, the acidity of the soil, balance the acidity.
It is measured as pH, where seven is neutral and each step is a tenfold change. In wine and coffee it is a quality word rather than a fault, since acidity is what makes a drink taste fresh rather than flat.
1nounacidityThe degree to which something is sharp and sour.
“Adding a little sugar to the tomato sauce helps reduce its acidity.”
acidity is a quality.
Latin aciditas comes from acidus, sour, from acere, to be sharp.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂eḱ-
Latin
aciditātem
French
acidité
English, today
acidity
Built from
From French acidité, from Latin aciditātem, accusative singular of aciditās (“sourness, acidity”), from acidus (“sour, acid”). Equivalent to acid + ity.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA