vinegar

UK/ˈvɪnəɡəː/US/ˈvɪnəɡɚ/

nounB2Common in everyday speech and writing · #6,497 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: vinegars

Vinegar is the very sour liquid you mix with oil for salad dressing. Oil and vinegar, malt vinegar, a splash of vinegar.

It is wine or beer taken one step further: bacteria turn the alcohol into acetic acid, which is what makes it sour and what preserves pickles. The name says so — the French vin aigre means sour wine. It cleans limescale for the same reason it pickles.

Definitions of vinegar

1nounvinegarA sour liquid made by fermenting alcohol further.B2
“She sprinkled salt and vinegar on her chips.”
- Said"Put some vinegar on the chips for me, not too much, and pass them here."
- WrittenVinegars pickled the onions in a week and the kitchen in an afternoon.
- UsedAdd a teaspoon of vinegar to the water when poaching eggs.
- ContrastVinegar, not lemon. Both are sour, but lemon is fruit and fresh; vinegar was wine or cider once and has turned. lemon →
- Not thisSour milk is not vinegar. Vinegar was made sour on purpose and keeps for years.
- SimplyVinegar is sour. Put it on the salad.
Patternwhite / malt / balsamic vinegar · a splash / dash of vinegar · oil and vinegar · in vinegar · vinegary

vinegar is a liquid.

Remember it

VINEgar → from the VINE: grapes, then wine, then this

Grapes on the vine become wine, and wine left open too long turns sharp and sour: vinegar.

hooks ontovine

Where it comes from

Old French vyn egre means sour wine, from Latin vinum, wine, plus acer, sharp or sour.

Proto-Indo-European
*h₂eḱ-
Middle English
vynegre
English, today
vinegar

From Middle English vynegre. From Middle English vynegre, from Old French vinaigre from Old French vyn egre, based on Latin vīnum (“wine”) + Latin ācer (“sour”). Displaced Old English æċed (survived in Middle English eced).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in In the Kitchen

Practise this word

vinegar in the wild

Many types of vinegar are made, depending on source materials.
Vinegar
HP Sauce is a British brown sauce, the main ingredients of which are tomatoes, malt vinegar, and molasses.
HP Sauce
HP Sauce has a tomato base, blended with malt vinegar and spirit vinegar, sugars (molasses, glucose-fructose syrup, sugar), dates, cornflour, rye flour, salt, spices, and tamarind.
HP Sauce
Three types of balsamic vinegar are "protected" as traditional vinegars in Europe.
Balsamic vinegar
Sunomono and other vinegared salads are related to namasu.
Namasu

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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.

Definitions of vinegar

1nounvinegarA sour liquid made by fermenting alcohol further.B2

“She sprinkled salt and vinegar on her chips.”

Said"Put some vinegar on the chips for me, not too much, and pass them here."
WrittenVinegars pickled the onions in a week and the kitchen in an afternoon.
UsedAdd a teaspoon of vinegar to the water when poaching eggs.
ContrastVinegar, not lemon. Both are sour, but lemon is fruit and fresh; vinegar was wine or cider once and has turned. lemon →
Not thisSour milk is not vinegar. Vinegar was made sour on purpose and keeps for years.
SimplyVinegar is sour. Put it on the salad.

Patternwhite / malt / balsamic vinegar · a splash / dash of vinegar · oil and vinegar · in vinegar · vinegary

vinegar is a liquid.