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Sour vs Stern - What's the difference?

sour | stern | Related terms |

As adjectives the difference between sour and stern

is that sour is having an acidic, sharp or tangy taste while stern is having a hardness and severity of nature or manner.

As nouns the difference between sour and stern

is that sour is the sensation of a sour taste while stern is the rear part or after end of a ship or vessel.

As a verb sour

is to make sour.

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

    * ----

    stern

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) stern, sterne, sturne, from (etyl) .

    Adjective

    (er)
  • Having a hardness and severity of nature or manner.
  • * (John Dryden)
  • stern as tutors, and as uncles hard
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=76, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Snakes and ladders , passage=Risk is everywhere. From tabloid headlines insisting that coffee causes cancer (yesterday, of course, it cured it) to stern government warnings about alcohol and driving, the world is teeming with goblins.}}
  • Grim and forbidding in appearance.
  • * (William Wordsworth)
  • these barren rocks, your stern inheritance

    Etymology 2

    Most likely from (etyl) , from the same Germanic root.

    Noun

    (wikipedia stern) (en noun)
  • (nautical) The rear part or after end of a ship or vessel.
  • * , chapter=7
  • , title= Mr. Pratt's Patients , passage=Old Applegate, in the stern', just set and looked at me, and Lord James, amidship, waved both arms and kept hollering for help. I took a couple of everlasting big strokes and managed to grab hold of the skiff's rail, close to the ' stern .}}
  • (figurative) The post of management or direction.
  • * (William Shakespeare)
  • and sit chiefest stern of public weal
  • The hinder part of anything.
  • (Spenser)
  • The tail of an animal; now used only of the tail of a dog.
  • Antonyms
    * bow
    Derived terms
    * from stem to stern * sternpost
    See also
    * keel

    Etymology 3

    (etyl)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A bird, the black tern.
  • Anagrams

    * * * * ---- ==Mòcheno==

    Noun

    (m)
  • (l) (luminous dot appearing in the night sky)
  • References

    *