vinegar

Pluralvinegars (some meanings)

Formsvinegars, vinegaring, vinegared

1. 1
   noununcountable

   A sour liquid, essentially a dilute solution of acetic acid, produced by fermenting alcohol and used as a condiment or a preservative.

   Restaurants keep vinegar on hand to brighten sauces and dressings.

   A splash of vinegar cuts through the richness of fried food.

   Note

   The name is the recipe. Old French vin egre means "sour wine," built from Latin vinum and acer. It displaced the native Old English æced, which lingered into Middle English as eced. As a substance it is uncountable: a splash of vinegar, trotters steeped in vinegar. It takes a plural only when you mean kinds, as in the sense for varieties.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A particular variety of vinegar, distinguished by its source or flavor, such as balsamic, cider, or rice.

   Italian kitchens prize aged vinegars for finishing their dishes.

   A good balsamic vinegar can cost more than a bottle of wine.

3. 3
   nouncolloquialUScountable or uncountable

   Vigorous energy and vitality, the kind a lively person has plenty of.

   Two-a-day practices in August took the vinegar out of even the cockiest freshmen.

   At eighty-five, she's still full of vinegar and runs the county historical society herself.

   Similarenergy, vigor, vitality, pep, spirit

   Note

   An informal American use that lives in set phrases rather than free description. Johnny Cash's "The Legend of John Henry's Hammer" (1962) shows its two usual frames. A man is full of vinegar, and hard work will take a little bit of vinegar out of him. Use it of a person's spirit and stamina. It sounds folksy and spoken, and it does not belong in formal prose.

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To season, flavor, or otherwise treat food or another substance with vinegar.

   The chef vinegars the shredded cabbage to give the slaw its tang.

   Picklers vinegar the vegetables before packing them into jars.

   Note

   Not only a kitchen verb. In Charles Dickens's Barnaby Rudge (1841), the vinegaring of temples stands beside the damping of foreheads and the hartshorning of noses, all part of the fuss of reviving someone who has fainted. The inflections keep a single r: vinegared, vinegaring. The past participle works neatly before a noun, as in vinegared cabbage.

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