VINEGAR • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Vinegar

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/vˈɪnəgər/ Listen

noun

Vinegar n.

1.

A sour liquid used as a condiment, or as a preservative, and obtained by the spontaneous (acetous) fermentation, or by the artificial oxidation, of wine, cider, beer, or the like. Note: The characteristic sourness of vinegar is due to acetic acid, of which it contains from three to five per cent. Wine vinegar contains also tartaric acid, citric acid, etc.

2.

Hence, anything sour; used also metaphorically. "Here's the challenge:... I warrant there's vinegar and pepper in't."

Aromatic vinegar, strong acetic acid highly flavored with aromatic substances.

Mother of vinegar. See 4th Mother.

Radical vinegar, acetic acid.

Thieves' vinegar. See under Thief.

Vinegar eel (Zool.), a minute nematode worm (Leptodera oxophila, or Anguillula acetiglutinis), commonly found in great numbers in vinegar, sour paste, and other fermenting vegetable substances; called also vinegar worm.

Vinegar lamp (Chem.), a fanciful name of an apparatus designed to oxidize alcohol to acetic acid by means of platinum.

Vinegar plant. See 4th Mother.

Vinegar tree (Bot.), the stag-horn sumac (Rhus typhina), whose acid berries have been used to intensify the sourness of vinegar.

Wood vinegar. See under Wood.

verb

Vinegar v. t. To convert into vinegar; to make like vinegar; to render sour or sharp. (Obs.) "Hoping that he hath vinegared his senses As he was bid."

See images of 'Vinegar'

Etymology of 'Vinegar'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Vinegar" Quotes from Famous Books

... me continually of Frederika Bremer's book called Home. A great many things in the way of food are new to me. For instance, there is a soup made of beer, brown bread, and cream, and another made of the insides of a goose, with its long neck and thin legs, boiled with prunes, apples, and vinegar. Then rice porridge is served as soup and mixed with hot beer, cinnamon, butter, and cream. These all seem very queer, but they taste very good, I asked for oatmeal porridge, but I was told that oatmeal ...

— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone

... bye, I can't think why this costume, which is so admirably suited to pretty girls—because it attracts attention to them—should be almost exclusively adopted by the ugly ones. But to continue. I knew immediately that she was Ella Barlow, the much-pampered and only daughter of J.B. Barlow, the vinegar magnate; that she was in love, or imagined herself in love with Herbert Delmas, the manager of the Columbian Bank—a young, good-looking fellow, whom she had been trying to set against his fiancee, Dora Roberts. Dora is only nineteen, very pretty and a trifle giddy—nothing more. But ...

— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell

... have contrived to mix oil and vinegar," said I. "A landed gentleman and republican simplicity. I'll warrant you wear silk-knit under that gray homespun, and have a cameo ...

— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... Tempest on our way here," explained Lady Susan. "The two men are rather a study in contrasts," she added. "Brian is really a great dear. I always think it's so clever of him to have preserved his faith in human nature when he's condemned to live with that oil-and-vinegar sister of his. It may be very unchristian of me"—with a small schoolboy grin—"but I simply can't abide ...

— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... Plaster of diachylon and gum (c. G. cum gummi), of saffron and vinegar, defensive plaster, plaster of Paracelsus, blistering plaster, diapalma plaster, compound laudanum plaster, melilot plaster. The term "emplastrum Paracelsi", so the librarian of the Surgeon-General's Office informs me, is not given as such in the older medical dictionaries, ...

— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various

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