sourness

nounB2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speech — sour sits at #3,433neutral

Sourness is the sharp quality of unripe fruit or vinegar. The sourness of a lemon.

It is a direct measure of acid, which is why the tongue detects it so precisely. Sourness in a dish balances fat and sweetness, which is why lemon rescues so many things.

Definitions of sourness

1nounsournessThe sharp quality of unripe fruit or vinegar.B2
“The sourness of the apples made them useless for eating and perfect for cooking.”

sourness is a taste.

Where it comes from

Old English surnes comes from sur, sour, with cognates across the Germanic languages.

Old English
sūrnes — sourness
Middle English
sowrenesse
English, today
sourness

From Middle English sowrenesse, sournesse, from Old English sūrnes (“sourness”), equivalent to sour + -ness.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Smell & Taste

Practise this word

sourness in the wild

Sugars and alcohol enhance a wine's sweetness, while acids cause sourness and bitter tannins cause bitterness.
Sweetness of wine
Ageusia is the loss of taste functions of the tongue, particularly the inability to detect sweetness, sourness, bitterness, saltiness, and umami (meaning 'savory taste').
Ageusia
The most common foods with natural sourness are fruits, such as lemon, lime, grape, orange, tamarind, and bitter melon.
Sourness
In addition, the unique sourness featured in Guizhou cuisine comes from the local tradition of fermenting vegetables or grains, and not from using vinegar products.
Guizhou cuisine
However, it has no effect on the perception of the other tastes, bitterness, sourness and saltiness.
Ziziphin

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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