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Salty vs Sour - What's the difference?

salty | sour |

Sour is a antonym of salty.



As adjectives the difference between salty and sour

is that salty is tasting of salt while sour is having an acidic, sharp or tangy taste.

As a noun sour is

the sensation of a sour taste.

As a verb sour is

to make sour.

salty

English

Adjective

(er)
  • Tasting of salt.
  • Containing salt.
  • (figuratively) Coarse, provocative, earthy; said of language.
  • (figuratively) Experienced, especially used to indicate a veteran of the naval services; salty dog (from salt of the sea).
  • Irritated, annoyed; from sharp, spicy flavor of salt.
  • * 1946 , Mezz Mezzrow and Bernard Wolfe, Really the Blues , Payback Press 1999, page 61:
    • Ray and Fuzzy were salty with our unhip no-playing piano player, because she broke time on the piano so bad that the strings yelled whoa to the hammers.
  • * 1969 , Iceberg Slim, Pimp: The Story of My Life , Holloway House Publishing, page 162:
    • I want to beg your pardon for making you salty that night.
  • (linguistics) Pertaining to those dialects of Catalan, spoken in the Balearic Islands and along the coast of Catalonia, that use definitive articles descended from the Latin .

    • Coordinate terms

    * (irritated attitude) sassy

    Derived terms

    * (experienced sailor) salty dog

    Anagrams

    *

    sour

    English

    Alternative forms

    * (obsolete) sowr

    Adjective

    (er)
  • Having an acidic, sharp or tangy taste.
  • * Francis Bacon
    • All sour things, as vinegar, provoke appetite.
  • Made rancid by fermentation, etc.
    • (rfex)
  • Tasting or smelling rancid.
    • (rfex)
  • Peevish or bad-tempered.
  • * Shakespeare
    • He was a scholar / Lofty and sour to them that loved him not, / But to those men that sought him sweet as summer.
  • (of soil) Excessively acidic and thus infertile.
  • (of petroleum) Containing excess sulfur.
    • (rfex)
  • Unfortunate or unfavorable.
  • * Shakespeare
    • sour adversity
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2011 , date=October 1 , author=Phil Dawkes , title=Sunderland 2 - 2 West Brom , work=BBC Sport citation , page= , passage=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.}}

    Noun

  • The sensation of a sour taste.
    • (rfex)
  • A drink made with whiskey, lemon or lime juice and sugar.
    • (rfex)
  • (label) Any cocktail containing lemon or lime juice.
  • A sour or acid substance; whatever produces a painful effect.
    • (Edmund Spenser)

    Derived terms

    * laundry sour

    Verb

  • (label) To make sour.
  • (label) To become sour.
  • * Jonathan Swift
    • So the sun's heat, with different powers, / Ripens the grape, the liquor sours .
  • (label) To make disenchanted.
  • * Shakespeare
    • To sour your happiness I must report, / The queen is dead.
  • (label) To become disenchanted.
  • (label) To make (soil) cold and unproductive.
    • (Mortimer)
  • To macerate (lime) and render it fit for plaster or mortar.

    • Anagrams

    * ----