acrid
Americanadjective
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sharp or biting to the taste or smell; bitterly pungent; irritating to the eyes, nose, etc..
acrid smoke from burning rubber.
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extremely or sharply stinging or bitter; exceedingly caustic.
acrid remarks.
adjective
-
unpleasantly pungent or sharp to the smell or taste
-
sharp or caustic, esp in speech or nature
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of acrid
1705–15; < Latin ācr- (stem of ācer ) sharp, sour + -id 4, perhaps through influence of acid
Explanation
Acrid is almost always used to describe a smell, and it ain't a pretty one. Acrid is the nasty sting that you feel in your nose when you walk by a building that just burned down — it's sulfur mixed with smoke. You can also use acrid to describe someone's tone or general demeanor when they are being nasty. Someone about to do something evil might first give an acrid sneer, or speak in a chillingly acrid tone of voice, or even shudder as if they'd just bit into something with an acrid taste.
Vocabulary lists containing acrid
Lord of the Flies
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The New SAT: Words to Capture Tone
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The SAT: Words to Capture Tone, List 8
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
He and his wife left the town for Bordeaux on Saturday, but found that in the city "the air was acrid - it stung your eyes and people were wearing masks".
From BBC ● Jul. 27, 2026
Over the next week, the fire continued to burn through dense insulation foam within the building’s walls and other unknown industrial materials, blanketing much of L.A. in acrid smoke.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 30, 2026
In the 1960s and 1970s, he would be up before the sun to pack a thermos of coffee and a camp lunch in one saddle bag and an acrid, tar-like screwworm killer in the other.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026
What rare fruit survived to maturity on these little, addled trees was misshapen, acrid, and stubbornly green on one end; in short, it tasted terrible.
From Slate ● Apr. 20, 2026
Kingshaw bent his head forward, closer to the model, breathing in the thick, acrid fumes of glue and metallic paint quickly, trying to forget.
From "I'm the King of the Castle" by Susan Hill
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
