Skip to main content
Search Section
Skip alphabetical navigation menu.

Browse Alphabetically

  • English Word Bitter Definition Having a peculiar, acrid, biting taste, like that of wormwood or an infusion of hops; as, a bitter medicine; bitter as aloes.
  • English Word Bitter Definition Causing pain or smart; piercing; painful; sharp; severe; as, a bitter cold day.
  • English Word Bitter Definition Causing, or fitted to cause, pain or distress to the mind; calamitous; poignant.
  • English Word Bitter Definition Characterized by sharpness, severity, or cruelty; harsh; stern; virulent; as, bitter reproach.
  • English Word Bitter Definition Mournful; sad; distressing; painful; pitiable.
  • English Word Bitter Definition Any substance that is bitter. See Bitters.
  • English Word Bitter Definition To make bitter.
  • English Word Bitter spar Definition A common name of dolomite; -- so called because it contains magnesia, the soluble salts of which are bitter. See Dolomite.
  • English Word Bitterbump Definition the butterbump or bittern.
  • English Word Bitterful Definition Full of bitterness.
  • English Word Bittering Definition A bitter compound used in adulterating beer; bittern.
  • English Word Bitterish Definition Somewhat bitter.
  • English Word Bitterling Definition A roachlike European fish (Rhodima amarus).
  • English Word Bitterly Definition In a bitter manner.
  • English Word Bittern Definition A wading bird of the genus Botaurus, allied to the herons, of various species.
  • English Word Bittern Definition The brine which remains in salt works after the salt is concreted, having a bitter taste from the chloride of magnesium which it contains.
  • English Word Bittern Definition A very bitter compound of quassia, cocculus Indicus, etc., used by fraudulent brewers in adulterating beer.
  • English Word Bitterness Definition The quality or state of being bitter, sharp, or acrid, in either a literal or figurative sense; implacableness; resentfulness; severity; keenness of reproach or sarcasm; deep distress, grief, or vexation of mind.
  • English Word Bitterness Definition A state of extreme impiety or enmity to God.
  • English Word Bitterness Definition Dangerous error, or schism, tending to draw persons to apostasy.
  • English Word Bitternut Definition The swamp hickory (Carya amara). Its thin-shelled nuts are bitter.
  • English Word Bitterroot Definition A plant (Lewisia rediviva) allied to the purslane, but with fleshy, farinaceous roots, growing in the mountains of Idaho, Montana, etc. It gives the name to the Bitter Root mountains and river. The Indians call both the plant and the river Spaet'lum.
  • English Word Bitters Definition A liquor, generally spirituous in which a bitter herb, leaf, or root is steeped.
  • English Word Bittersweet Definition Sweet and then bitter or bitter and then sweet; esp. sweet with a bitter after taste; hence (Fig.), pleasant but painful.
  • English Word Bittersweet Definition Anything which is bittersweet.
  • English Word Bittersweet Definition A kind of apple so called.
  • English Word Bittersweet Definition A climbing shrub, with oval coral-red berries (Solanum dulcamara); woody nightshade. The whole plant is poisonous, and has a taste at first sweetish and then bitter. The branches are the officinal dulcamara.
  • English Word Bittersweet Definition An American woody climber (Celastrus scandens), whose yellow capsules open late in autumn, and disclose the red aril which covers the seeds; -- also called Roxbury waxwork.
  • English Word Bitterweed Definition A species of Ambrosia (A. artemisiaefolia); Roman worm wood.
  • English Word Bitterwood Definition A West Indian tree (Picraena excelsa) from the wood of which the bitter drug Jamaica quassia is obtained.