acerb
adjective
Simple meaning
Sharp and harsh in expressing oneself.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
uhsehrbSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
əˈsɛɹb
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
archaicfigurative
Sharp and harsh in expressing oneself.
archaic
Sour, bitter, and harsh to the taste, such as unripe fruit.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Sharp and harsh in expressing oneself.
Used this way, acerb is an old word kept alive mainly in historical writing that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in historical writing and literature or storytelling contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Archaic
- Connotation
- Old-fashioned
- Usage feel
- Dated in modern speech
Where it naturally appears
- Historical writing
- Literature/storytelling
Usage note
This meaning belongs to older English, so readers meet it in historical or literary texts rather than in current speech.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: sharp and harsh in expressing oneself
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.