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