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sour
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
sour
I.adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a musty/stale/sour smell (=old and not fresh)
▪ The clothes in the wardrobe had a damp musty smell.
go bad/sour etc
▪ The bread’s gone mouldy.
sour cream
sour relations (=make them less friendly)
▪ The dispute has soured relations between the two countries.
sour (=not fresh)
▪ Milk turns sour very quickly in hot weather.
sour
▪ The purpose of the lemon’s sour taste may be to stop the fruit being eaten by animals.
sour/soured cream (=with a slightly sour taste – used in cooking)
sour/soured cream (=with a slightly sour taste – used in cooking)
sour/tart (=not at all sweet)
▪ Some people prefer a slightly sour apple.
taste sweet/bitter/sour/salty
▪ He handed me some black stuff which tasted bitter.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
cream
▪ Serve with apple sauce, sour cream or jam.
▪ Fold the reduced juice into the sour cream.
▪ Put strained liquid, sour cream, half coriander and grated Edam into a food processor or blender and whizz until smooth.
▪ Drizzle with salsa, sour cream and chopped cilantro.
▪ This is chutzpah on rye bread with a side order of pickles and sour cream.
▪ Remove from heat and stir in mustards, horseradish and sour cream.
▪ By now, his wife would have given up waiting and served the cold beetroot soup with sour cream and chives.
▪ The bright flavor of paprika, in combination with sour cream, is a perfect foil for the succulent meat of rabbit.
face
▪ She looked back over her shoulder at him and pulled a sour face.
grape
▪ It may sound like sour grapes but I assure you I feel no bitterness merely disappointed.
▪ Sounds like sour grapes to me.
▪ Are these just bad vibes and sour grapes or is hip hop just too naughty by nature for the mainstream?
▪ Already one began to hear the nickname Suicide Langford; but that was either sour grapes or silly sensationalism.
▪ There is certainly no defensiveness nor any sour grapes from me or any of the Editing for Industry committee.
▪ Envy and sour grapes had their customary party.
▪ This was sour grapes, a far-off voice of wisdom suggested.
▪ Criticisms from ex-players, in my opinion, are nothing but sour grapes.
look
▪ A Tory campaign machine on full throttle generally encountered sour looks and sullen stares.
milk
▪ There were cupboards hanging open, mattresses overturned and a bottle of sour milk stood in the sink.
▪ It stood, open and scoured, to breathe the air that purified it from any hint of sour milk.
▪ So much milk came into Waterloo that it was renowned for smelling of sour milk all day.
▪ Her cheap, strong perfume mingled with the sour milk and woodsmoke.
note
▪ If the player tampers with those, he is blamed for hitting a sour note, not praised for a daring interpretation.
▪ From workers there's bitterness that it's all ended on such a sour note.
▪ This needled Stirling and the meeting ended on a sour note.
▪ The craftsmen there hope their careers won't end on a sour note.
▪ Yet it would be wrong to end on a sour note.
▪ The only slightly sour note entered the proceedings with the president's plan to send a special envoy to Northern Ireland.
▪ The only sour note was the electrified fence that marked the forbidden border zone.
smell
▪ He moved around, inspecting each body carefully, holding his breath against the sour smell of corruption.
▪ He hated the sour smell and atmosphere of the club, where chairs had been pushed back to create a studio floor.
▪ After he had gone I found that my nightie was covered in a horrible sticky mess with a strange sour smell.
▪ It was a sour smell, but good.
▪ Even through her perfume she could still detect the sour smell of the sheets.
▪ There was a sour smell and the growing heat of the sun was sucking up a mist from the waters.
▪ There was a dank, sour smell to everything, a smell of decay and great antiquity.
▪ A sour smell of overcrowded humanity hung in the air.
taste
▪ She said her lines with the sour taste of sickness in her mouth, but got through them and her exit creditably.
▪ A very little bit of sugar works wonders for dishes that are based on sour tastes.
▪ But there was a sour taste in her throat suddenly.
▪ Eventually, even her rage had gone flat and stale, leaving her with nothing but a sour taste in her mouth.
▪ A sour taste flooded into his mouth.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ In these temperatures, milk goes sour very quickly.
▪ Kvass is a mild beer that is sometimes used in Russian cooking for its sour flavor.
▪ She always had the same sour expression.
▪ The milk smells a little sour.
▪ The strawberries are a little sour - you may need to put sugar on them.
▪ The wine was so sour that I couldn't drink it.
▪ These cherries are really sour.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ I smelt the sour odour of sweaty robes and noticed a brazier of gleaming charcoal had been rolled in.
▪ In 1993, a wage garnishment was filed against him stemming from a diamond sale gone sour.
▪ Soon he would smell the first sour tang of winter on the sea breezes.
▪ The minute the sour flavor exploded in his mouth, slivers of intense pain filled his head.
▪ The vision of bedsit freedom would soon turn sour.
▪ Too often relationships go sour or become impoverished through lack of attention.
▪ What is sour comes from pretending to be what we are not.
II.verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
turn
▪ Those risks can turn sour, as they do for any pin-striped market-maker.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ The affair did not seem to have soured their friendship.
▪ The global trend towards higher taxation on fuel consumption is souring relations with leading oil-producing states.
▪ The incident soured relations between the two countries.
▪ The incident was serious enough to sour the atmosphere for weeks.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Ill-treated hobgoblins can cause strife and discord, though, souring milk, tangling clothes and muddying floors for spite.
▪ Many investors have soured on closedend funds because they were burned buying closed-end IPOs.
▪ Since each of these parties leant on the other for reassurance, relations between them will be soured as a result.
▪ That was still before people went to chokey for dodgy dealings, but he soured his own patch.
▪ The familiar dark soured then stung with chlorine.
▪ Worth noting about McMahon, though, is that some teams reportedly soured on his attitude at the Senior Bowl.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Sour

Sour \Sour\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Soured; p. pr. & vb. n. Souring.] To become sour; to turn from sweet to sour; as, milk soon sours in hot weather; a kind temper sometimes sours in adversity.

They keep out melancholy from the virtuous, and hinder the hatred of vice from souring into severity.
--Addison.

Sour

Sour \Sour\, a. [Compar. Sourer; superl. Sourest.] [OE. sour, sur, AS. s?r; akin to D. zuur, G. sauer, OHG. s?r, Icel. s?rr, Sw. sur, Dan. suur, Lith. suras salt, Russ. surovui harsh, rough. Cf. Sorrel, the plant.]

  1. Having an acid or sharp, biting taste, like vinegar, and the juices of most unripe fruits; acid; tart.

    All sour things, as vinegar, provoke appetite.
    --Bacon.

  2. Changed, as by keeping, so as to be acid, rancid, or musty, turned.

  3. Disagreeable; unpleasant; hence; cross; crabbed; peevish; morose; as, a man of a sour temper; a sour reply. ``A sour countenance.''
    --Swift.

    He was a scholar . . . Lofty and sour to them that loved him not, But to those men that sought him sweet as summer.
    --Shak.

  4. Afflictive; painful. ``Sour adversity.''
    --Shak.

  5. Cold and unproductive; as, sour land; a sour marsh.

    Sour dock (Bot.), sorrel.

    Sour gourd (Bot.), the gourdlike fruit Adansonia Gregorii, and A. digitata; also, either of the trees bearing this fruit. See Adansonia.

    Sour grapes. See under Grape.

    Sour gum (Bot.) See Turelo.

    Sour plum (Bot.), the edible acid fruit of an Australian tree ( Owenia venosa); also, the tree itself, which furnished a hard reddish wood used by wheelwrights.

    Syn: Acid; sharp; tart; acetous; acetose; harsh; acrimonious; crabbed; currish; peevish.

Sour

Sour \Sour\, n. A sour or acid substance; whatever produces a painful effect.
--Spenser.

Sour

Sour \Sour\, v. t. [AS. s?rian to sour, to become sour.]

  1. To cause to become sour; to cause to turn from sweet to sour; as, exposure to the air sours many substances.

    So the sun's heat, with different powers, Ripens the grape, the liquor sours.
    --Swift.

  2. To make cold and unproductive, as soil.
    --Mortimer.

  3. To make unhappy, uneasy, or less agreeable.

    To sour your happiness I must report, The queen is dead.
    --Shak.

  4. To cause or permit to become harsh or unkindly. ``Souring his cheeks.''
    --Shak.

    Pride had not sour'd nor wrath debased my heart.
    --Harte.

  5. To macerate, and render fit for plaster or mortar; as, to sour lime for business purposes.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
sour

Old English sur "sour, tart, acid, fermented," from Proto-Germanic *sura- "sour" (cognates: Old Norse surr, Middle Dutch suur, Dutch zuur, Old High German sur, German Sauer), from PIE root *suro- "sour, salty, bitter" (cognates: Old Church Slavonic syru, Russian syroi "moist, raw;" Lithuanian suras "salty," suris "cheese").\n

\nMeaning "having a peevish disposition" is from early 13c. Sense in whisky sour (1885) is "with lemon added" (1862). Sour cream is attested from 1855. French sur "sour, tart" (12c.) is a Germanic loan-word.

sour

c.1300, from sour (adj.). Compare Old High German suren, German säuern. Related: Soured; souring.

Wiktionary
sour
  1. 1 Having an acidic, sharp or tangy taste. 2 Made rancid by fermentation, etc. 3 tasting or smelling rancid. 4 peevish or bad-tempered. 5 (qualifier: of soil) Excessively acidic and thus infertile. 6 (qualifier: of petroleum) Containing excess sulfur. 7 unfortunate or unfavorable. n. 1 The sensation of a sour taste. 2 A drink made with whiskey, lemon juice or lime juice and sugar. 3 (label en by extension) Any cocktail containing lemon juice or lime juice. 4 A sour or acid substance; whatever produces a painful effect. v

  2. 1 (label en transitive) To make sour. 2 (label en intransitive) To become sour. 3 (label en transitive) To make disenchanted. 4 (label en intransitive) To become disenchanted. 5 (label en transitive) To make (soil) cold and unproductive. 6 To macerate (lime) and render it fit for plaster or mortar.

WordNet
sour
  1. n. a cocktail made of a liquor (especially whiskey or gin) mixed with lemon or lime juice and sugar

  2. the taste experience when vinegar or lemon juice is taken into the mouth [syn: sourness, tartness]

  3. the property of being acidic [syn: sourness, acidity]

sour
  1. v. go sour or spoil; "The milk has soured"; "The wine worked"; "The cream has turned--we have to throw it out" [syn: turn, ferment, work]

  2. make sour or more sour [syn: acidify, acidulate, acetify] [ant: sweeten]

sour
  1. adj. smelling of fermentation or staleness [syn: rancid]

  2. having a sharp biting taste [ant: sweet]

  3. one of the four basic taste sensations; like the taste of vinegar or lemons

  4. in an unpalatable state; "sour milk" [syn: off, turned]

  5. inaccurate in pitch; "a false (or sour) note"; "her singing was off key" [syn: false, off-key]

  6. showing a brooding ill humor; "a dark scowl"; "the proverbially dour New England Puritan"; "a glum, hopeless shrug"; "he sat in moody silence"; "a morose and unsociable manner"; "a saturnine, almost misanthropic young genius"- Bruce Bliven; "a sour temper"; "a sullen crowd" [syn: dark, dour, glowering, glum, moody, morose, saturnine, sullen]

Gazetteer
Wikipedia
Sour (cocktail)

A sour is a traditional family of mixed drinks. Common examples of sours are the margarita and the sidecar. Sours belong to one of the old families of original cocktails and are described by Jerry Thomas in his 1862 book How to Mix Drinks.

Sours are mixed drinks containing a base liquor, lemon or lime juice, and a sweetener ( triple sec, simple syrup, grenadine, or pineapple juice are common). Egg whites are also included in some sours.

Sour (album)

Sour is the first official recording by rock group Ours. Sour is an anagram of the band's name.

Sour (disambiguation)

To be sour is to evoke the taste that detects acidity.

Sour may also refer to:

  • Sour, a subset of sativa-dominant Cannabis strains.
  • Sour (cocktail), a traditional family of mixed drinks
  • Souring, a cooking technique that uses exposure to an acid to effect a physical and chemical change in food
  • Sour (album), a 1994 album by Ours
  • "Sour" (song), a song by Limp Bizkit
  • Sour, Algeria
  • Tyre, Lebanon, occasionally romanized as Sour
SöuR

SöuR was an industrial metal band from Los Angeles, California, formed in 1996. The lineup consisted of Sativa Novak on vocals and keyboards, Clint Yeager on bass, DD Ehrlich on guitars, and Tom Curry on drums. They have remained inactive since releasing their album, EXACTLY what You ThiNk It Is.

Usage examples of "sour".

These juices, together with those of the pear, the peach, the plum, and other such fruits, if taken without adding cane sugar, diminish acidity in the stomach rather than provoke it: they become converted chemically into alkaline carbonates, which correct sour fermentation.

Frequent mention is made of sour galls, aleppo galls, green and blue vitriol, the lees of wine, black amber, sugar, fish-glue and a host of unimportant materials as being employed in the admixture of black inks.

Our great Washington found that out, and the British officer that beat Bonaparte, the bread they gave him turned sour afore he got half through the loaf.

Amarok was gone, Alacrity beamed at Floyt, who still wore a sour look.

And Lieutenant Alameda, her normally sour expression gone, was actually beautiful when she allowed herself to smile.

His garments had once been fine, but judging by their worn appearance and the sour odor that rose from them, Alec suspected their owner to be a denizen of the northern Ring.

Vanessa unpacks the picnic basket while I run around trying to find intact baobab pods so that we can crack open their hairy shells and suck the sour white powder off the seeds.

The metal toilet in the cell had backed up, and was filled to the brim with a brown stew of liquid feces and sour, beerish urine.

Burnfingers Begay waited until everyone else had put in their order before calmly requesting tenderloin of venison filled with trout pate beneath a sour cream-champagne sauce, potatoes au gratin on the side, and haricots verts accompanied by a 1948 Bavarian Liebfraumilch.

There hobbles Goody Foster, a sour and bitter old beldam, looking as if she went to curse, and not to pray, and whom many of her neighbors suspect of taking an occasional airing on a broomstick.

It was like sour water, and kind of bitterish for wine, but my head began to work faster right away, and the good side of things started to show up.

He can smell the grass on either side of him, a bleachy scent like fresh semen, can smell the water and sour mud of Cherokee Creek, which curves west not far from here, passing under the highway through a man-high culvert.

Separatists from the Church of England who, in the violence of their alienation and the bitterness of their sufferings, did not refrain from sour and acrid censoriousness toward the men who were nearest them in religious conviction and pursuing like ends by another course.

Arrange the scrambled eggs down the middle, then top with the scallions, avocado, salsa, sour cream, and cilantro if you have some in the house.

Stir it up, thicken the chili a little with the guar or xanthan if you think it needs it, and serve with sour cream, shredded cheese, and chopped cilantro on top.