acerbic

adjective

acer·bic ə-ˈsər-bik

Synonyms of acerbic next

: sharply or bitingly critical, sarcastic, or ironic in temper, mood, or tone

acerbic commentary

an acerbic reviewer

acerbically

ə-ˈsər-bi-k(ə-)lē

adverb

Did you know?

English speakers created acerbic in the 19th century by adding -ic to the adjective acerb. Acerb had been around since the 17th century, but for most of that time it had been used only to describe foods with a sour taste. (Acerb is still around today, but now it's simply a less common synonym of acerbic.) Acerbic and acerb ultimately come from the Latin adjective acerbus, which can mean "harsh" or "unpleasant." Another English word that comes from acerbus is exacerbate, which means "to make more violent or severe."

Examples of acerbic in a Sentence

Whitney has graced magazine covers for her acerbic and blunt evisceration of the banks she has covered. Several weeks ago, she left her well-paid post at Oppenheimer to start her own economic consultancy, where she will charge many of her employer's clients for her own unambiguous analysis. —

Zachary Karabell, Newsweek, 9 Mar. 2009

… we probably have no choice but to enjoy Private Lives on its own terms—as a play that exults in its total lack of a public dimension. Coward's acerbic wit, his submerged sensibility, and his clipped semantics actually had a profound influence on the styles of virtually all the English dramatists who followed him … —

Robert Brustein, New Republic, 10 June 2002

… discovery of self-esteem and New Agey conclusions ("I discovered there was a goddess deep inside me") are something that an acerbic comedian like Cho shouldn't embrace without irony. —

Publishers Weekly, 7 May 2001

We want to experience how someone as acerbic as Jane Austen, as morally passionate as Dostoyevsky, as psychologically astute as Henry James makes sense of the chaos of this world. —

Laura Miller, New York Times Book Review, 15 Mar. 1998

the film's most acerbic critics whispered a steady stream of acerbic comments as the lecturer droned on

Recent Examples on the Web Broderick played the straight comedy guy in the movie to Carrey’s acerbic cable technician. —

Anthony D'alessandro, Deadline, 15 June 2024 In place of extensive compositional analyses (during this time, the composer wrote only six new pieces), Maddocks offers a character study punctuated by colorful source material, including acerbic diary entries by Prokofiev, which betray both envy of and affection for his competitor. —

The New Yorker, 12 June 2024 In the world of popular literary fiction, though, This Strange Eventful History can feel incongruous: more acerbic than the typical book-club pick, but without the overt stylish newness of a punctuation-light novel like Murray’s. —

Emma Alpern, Vulture, 7 May 2024 As recorded in Neal’s highly entertaining biography, Beals’s best books, enriched by his extensive travels, offered colorful, often acerbic portraits of the leading political and intellectual figures of the day. —

Christopher Neal, Foreign Affairs, 20 Dec. 2022 See all Example Sentences for acerbic

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'acerbic.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.