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Vitriolic   /vˌɪtriˈɑlɪk/   Listen
Vitriolic

adjective
1.
Harsh or corrosive in tone.  Synonyms: acerb, acerbic, acid, acrid, bitter, blistering, caustic, sulfurous, sulphurous, virulent.  "A barrage of acid comments" , "Her acrid remarks make her many enemies" , "Bitter words" , "Blistering criticism" , "Caustic jokes about political assassination, talk-show hosts and medical ethics" , "A sulfurous denunciation" , "A vitriolic critique"
2.
Of a substance, especially a strong acid; capable of destroying or eating away by chemical action.  Synonyms: caustic, corrosive, erosive, mordant.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Vitriolic" Quotes from Famous Books



... into the log chapel long before the services began—every soul, that is, but Inez. Mr. Fowler never had been more eloquent and never, probably, had preached to a more deeply interested congregation. His sermon was a vitriolic arraignment, thinly disguised by Biblical nomenclature, ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie

... by that bland preachment than he would have been by vitriolic insult. While he marched back to the table he prefaced his arraignment of Morrison by calling him an impudent pup. He dwelt on that subject with all his power of ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day

... that he made 3,000 pounds by his agricultural writings. The pen brought him more profit than the plough. He took a hundred acres in Hertfordshire, and said of them, "I know not what epithet to give this soil; sterility falls short of the idea; a hungry vitriolic gravel—I occupied for nine years the jaws of a wolf. A nabob's fortune would sink in the attempt to raise good arable crops in such a country. My experience and knowledge had increased from travelling and practice, but all ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young

... bear a hand, but Bourne unceremoniously took him by the arm and said with concentration, "No thanks, Acton. We'll excuse you—you beastly cad!" I heard Bourne's remark, though no one else saw or heard. Acton's hand closed involuntarily, and he gave Bourne a vitriolic look, but did nothing nor said anything. We took Aspinall up to Merishall's—his old house—where he was staying, and ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson

... season for oysters; nevertheless, it may not be amiss to mention, that the right Colchester are kept in slime-pits, occasionally overflowed by the sea; and that the green colour, so much admired by the voluptuaries of this metropolis, is occasioned by the vitriolic scum, which rises on the surface of the stagnant and stinking water — Our rabbits are bred and fed in the poulterer's cellar, where they have neither air nor exercise, consequently they must be firm in flesh, and delicious in flavour; and there is no game ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... he in fluent and vitriolic Bomongo—for he was using that fisher dialect which he knew so much better than the more sonorous tongue of the Upper River—"O hear, eater of fish, O lame dog, O nameless child ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace

... this element discovered by Priestley was the universal acidifying or oxygenating principle, which, when combined with charcoal or carbon, formed carbonic acid; when combined with sulphur, formed sulphuric (or vitriolic) acid; with nitrogen, formed nitric acid, etc., and when combined with the metals formed oxides, or calcides. Furthermore, he postulated the theory that combustion was not due to any such illusive thing as "phlogiston," ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... genuine love for music, and was most mistakenly furnished with the head of a cherub: insomuch that beautiful ladies who watched the Regiment in church were wont to speak of him as a "darling." They never heard his vitriolic comments on their manners and morals, as he walked back to barracks with the Band and matured fresh ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... almost less a pleasure than a pain, but she always tore them open, and read them with eager unhappiness. There were miserable intervals of days and even weeks when no letters came, and when the Reuter telegrams in the Gazette of Venice dribbled their vitriolic news of Northern disaster through a few words or lines, and Galignani's long columns were filled with the hostile exultation and prophecy ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells



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