bittersweet
Part of speech: adj
noun
Morphological type: compound
Etymology: From Middle English bitterswete, biterswete, equivalent to bitter + sweet. Cognate with Saterland Frisian bitterswäit (“bittersweet”), West Frisian bittersoet (“bittersweet”), Dutch bitterzoet (“bittersweet”), German bittersüß (“bittersweet”), Danish bittersød (“bittersweet”), Swedish bittersöt (“bittersweet”).
Compound parts: bitter
sweet
Inflected forms:
form: more bittersweet
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: most bittersweet
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: bitter-sweet
pos: adj
tags: alternative
form: bittersweets
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: bitter-sweet
pos: noun
tags: alternative
Senses:
gloss: Both bitter and sweet.
pos: adj
examples: bittersweet chocolate
The dark green mooncake is loaded with matcha-infused salted egg yolk custard, which gives a bittersweet taste.
gloss: Expressing contrasting emotions of pain and pleasure.
pos: adj
tags: figuratively
examples: The break-up was very bittersweet; they both hurt to end it, but were glad it was over.
[…] sensations of this kind, however delicious, are, at their first recognition, of a very tumultuous nature, and have very little of the opiate in them. They were, moreover, in the present case, embittered with certain circumstances, which being mixed with sweeter ingredients, tended altogether to compose a draught that might be termed bitter-sweet […]
Her eyes still shone upon the ground, and still she prolonged the bittersweet delight at seeing this humiliation of both soul and body by asking the one question whose reply would complete her sad success.
He sat beside the busy street,
There, where he last had seen her face:
And thronging memories, bitter-sweet,
Seemed yet to haunt the ancient place:
While the final festivities were bittersweet, David and Lisa insisted on a party rather than a funeral.
The public has complicated feelings about our decision to end this trial before it ever began, and that’s OK. It’s bittersweet for us, too.
gloss: Of bittersweet color (see the noun section, below).
pos: adj
gloss: Bittersweet nightshade (Solanum dulcamara).
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: Bitter ſweete bringeth foorth wooddie ſtalks as doth the Vine, parted into many ſlender creeping braunches, by which it climeth and taketh holde of hedges and ſhrubbes next vnto it. […] Bitter ſweet doth grow in moiſt places about ditches, riuers, and hedges, almoſt euery where.
gloss: Bittersweetness.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: I had once before visited these three villages, Skedans, Tanoo and Cumshewa. The bitter-sweet of their overwhelming loneliness created a longing to return to them.
gloss: A vine, of the genus Celastrus, having small orange fruit that open to reveal red seeds.
pos: noun
tags: US
countable
uncountable
examples: Over by the creek-bed scarlet-flamed sumac shouldered the silver-green of the willows, and orange-colored bittersweet crept through the tangle of wild plums.
gloss: A variety of apple with a bittersweet taste.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: "They had a good crop of bitter-sweets, they couldn’t grind them all"—nodding towards an orchard where some heaps of apples had been left lying ever since the ingathering.
gloss: Any variety of clam in the family Glycymerididae
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: A pinkish-orange color. Any color in between scarlet and orange.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
Derived words: bittersweetly
bittersweetness
American bittersweet
oriental bittersweet
Translations: