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Glite Dictionary
🍋 Tastes acidic 🥛 Gone bad 🥛 To spoil 😒 Unfriendly attitude 🍸 A cocktail 👃 Unpleasant smell 🥒 Acidic food 🍋 Acidic taste 🎶 Out of tune
to sour

to sour

12 3.4
Become bad in taste or become upset
  • verb
  • /saʊər/
translation icon : agriar
  • If allowed to fester, trade friction can sour, even endanger, longstanding political or military alliances.
  • begin to sour

You, you know, you're trying to hold it together and if your mood sours, then it takes it all down.

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Examples

  • Choufleur kept his wine here, so it would not sour in the heat.

    Fiction book (2000)

  • You stay in my hometown and do nothing but sour my beer.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • These bacteria will not only sour your milk but will go far in determining how your product ages.

    Artois the Goat (2009)

  • It sours the national mood.

    Lincoln (2012)

  • Your food won't digest and your wine will sour.

    The Seventh Victim (1943)

  • The alliance between the MP and business began to sour as macroeconomic indicators worsened starting in 1987.

    Academic text (2003)

  • Unexpectedly, Justin embarked on a new monologue that occupied the rest of the meal, souring Mira's mood.

    Fiction book (1999)

  • Leaving the bread out too long can cause it to sour and develop an unpleasant taste.

  • As the milk sat in the sun, it began to sour and emit a foul odor.

  • If you don't use the fruit quickly, it will sour and become inedible.

Synonyms

to turn
vsto sour
433 4.6

Go bad, especially food or drink

also covers making taste acidic or spoilage by fermentation or decay
to ferment
vsto sour
  • Specialized
27 5.5

To make sugar change into alcohol or acid using yeast

focuses on taste change and spoilage rather than the chemical process
to go sour
vsto sour
17 4.1

To become bad or fail, for example a relationship

applies to physical taste change or food spoilage rather than failure
to acidify
vsto sour
1 6.1

To make something more acidic or sour

is broader, also covering spoilage by decay or fermentation
to acetify
vsto sour
9.9

To become sour and change into vinegar

is more general and not limited to producing vinegar specifically
to acidulate
vsto sour
  • Specialized
9.4

Make something slightly sour by adding lemon or vinegar

describes a stronger or broader change in acidity or spoilage
to acerbate
vsto sour
9.9

To make a taste, situation, or feeling more bitter

concerns physical taste change or food spoilage, not emotional bitterness

Antonyms

to improve
∞ 1.0

To make something better

to sweeten
25 3.0

Make food taste sweeter by adding sugar or make an offer more attractive

Idioms

sour grapes
  • Informal
9 6.1

Saying something is not good because you cannot have it

Phrasal Verbs

to go sour
17 4.1

To become bad or fail, for example a relationship

to sour on
  • Informal
5 7.4

To start to dislike someone or something

Compounds

sour cream
34 1.0

A thick white food made from milk with a slightly sour taste used as a topping or in cooking

whiskey sour
  • US
5 5.0

A drink made with whiskey, lemon juice, and sugar served over ice

sour milk
4 1.8

Milk that has gone bad and smells and tastes unpleasant

sour mash
  • Specialized
2 7.4

A way of making whiskey using part of a previous batch to start the next one

sour cherry
1 2.9

A small red fruit that tastes sour and is used for cooking or baking

sour mash whiskey
  • Specialized
1 7.2

People add some mash from an earlier batch when making whiskey to keep the same flavor

sour cherry
1 3.6

A deep red colour like the skin of ripe tart fruit

sour orange
1 5.0

A tree that makes bitter oranges used as root for other orange trees and for marmalade

sour orange
1 3.7

A very tart orange used in cooking and for making marmalade

sour bread
3.5

Bread made with a mixture of flour and water that has natural yeast, giving a tangy taste

sour cherry tree
3.7

A small tree that makes tart red cherries often used in cooking and jam

sour gourd
  • Australian
9.9

A tree that has sour fruit often used in cooking

sour grass
8.1

A small plant like clover with a sour taste that people eat as a green

sour gum
  • US
8.4

A tree that loses its leaves in autumn and has bright red leaves and small blue berries

sour dock
8.6

A plant with large sour leaves used in salads and spring greens

sour fig
  • South African
9.2

A low plant from South Africa with thick leaves that makes small edible fruit

sour gourd
  • Australian
8.9

A sour edible fruit with hard skin used in cooking

sour salt
  • UK
4.8

Small white crystals that you add to food to make it taste sour

sour tooth
5.7

A liking for sour foods

sour-gum family
  • Specialized
9.9

A group of related trees that make flowers and fruit, like the sour gum tree

sour-tasting
1.0

Tasting sharp and like lemon or vinegar

How Spoiled

to putrefy
4 9.2
to rot
156 1.4
to sour
12 3.4
to turn
433 4.6

Surface Forms

sour infinitive
soured past
soured past participle
souring present participle
sours third person singular

Etymology

Sour (verb) comes from the adjective and Old English sūr meaning 'acid' or 'sharp', and it keeps the idea of changing into something sharp or spoiled, whether food goes bad or a feeling becomes unpleasant.