[f. ACRID a. + -ITY; cf. acid-ity. A formation, having no prototype in Fr. or L., which has superseded the more regular acritude and acrity, and to a great extent the literal use of acrimony. Not in Todd, 1818; in the quot. from Boorde it is probably an error.]
1. The quality of being acrid; a combination of bitterness to the taste with irritancy or corrosion to the mucous membrane; pungent, inflammatory or corrosive bitterness.
1547. A. Boorde, Breuiary, cccxxxii. 107 b. This infirmitie [Strangury] may come thorowe acredite or sharpness of the water.
1803. Edin. Rev., III. 13. An acid, when combined with an alkali … destroys the acridity of the alkali.
1830. Lindley, Nat. Syst. Bot., 7. Acridity, causticity, and poison, are the general characters of this suspicious order.
1876. Bartholow, Mat. Med. & Therap. (1879), 259. When swallowed it leaves a sense of constriction and acridity in the throat.
2. Irritant bitterness of speech or temper.
1859. G. Meredith, R. Feverel, I. i. 17. The very acridity of the Aphorisms … sprang from wounded softness, not from hardness.
1861. Freer, Henry IV & M. de Med., II. 215. Madame La Marquise revelled in well-aimed acridity of speech, inexpressibly provoking.
1881. N. Y. Nation, XXXII. 367. The acridity which marks his speeches is quite absent from his private conversation.
