bitterness

From Middle English bitternesse, biternesse, from Old English biternes (“bitterness; grief”), equivalent to bitter +‎ -ness.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈbɪtənəs/

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bitterness (countable and uncountable, plural bitternesses)

1. The quality of having a bitter taste.
2. The quality of feeling bitter; acrimony, resentment; the quality of exhibiting such feelings.

   the bitterness of his words

   She kept her bitterness about her mistreatment for the rest of her life.

   • 1845 July and August, John O’Sullivan, “Annexation”, in United States Magazine and Democratic Review‎^[1], volume 17, number 1, archived from the original on 4 July 2024, page 1:

     It is now time for the opposition to the Annexation of Texas to cease, all further agitation of the waters of bitterness and strife, at least in connexion with this question,–even though it may perhaps be required of us as a necessary condition of the freedom of our institutions, that we must live on for ever in a state of unpausing struggle and excitement upon some subject of party division or other.

   • 2001, Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections:

     She suspected that during the summer her father had mentioned Brian’s windfall to Billy and that father and son had then traded snidenesses and bitternesses about the W—— Corporation and bourgeois Robin and leisure-class Brian.

   • 2011 April 23, Marina Hyde, “Royal wedding: third tier European princeling is bitter at being NFI”, in The Guardian‎^[2], archived from the original on 6 May 2021:

     Speaking of the guest list, though, it is most disappointing to find some of the third tier European princelings unable to hide their bitterness at being NFI.

3. The quality of eliciting a bitter, humiliating or harsh feeling.

   Nothing could assuage the bitterness of their defeat.

4. Harsh cold.

   The bitterness of the winter caught us all by surprise.

• (quality of being bitter in taste): acerbicness, acridity, acridness
• (quality of feeling bitter): acrimony, gall, rancor, resentment, bile