[OE. biternys, f. biter, BITTER + -NESS.] The quality or state of being bitter: a. to taste; b. to the mind or feelings; c. deep sorrow or anguish of heart; d. animosity, acrimony of temper, action or words; e. intensity of frost or cold wind.
971. Blickl. Hom., 115. Þes middanʓeard flyhþ from us mid mycelre biternesse.
c. 1000. Ælfric, Ex. xv. 23. Mara … þæt ys on ure Lyden biternys.
c. 1200. Trin. Coll. Hom., 45. Mirre for ure biternesse.
1382. Wyclif, Isa. xxxviii. 15. In the bitternesse of my soule. Ibid., Rom. iii. 14. The mouth of whom is ful of cursyng, or wariyng, and bitternesse.
1477. Earl Rivers (Caxton), Dictes, 68. The bittrenesse of the aloe tre.
1535. Coverdale, 1 Sam. xv. 32. Thus departeth the bytternesse of death.
1597. Shaks., 2 Hen. IV., I. ii. 198. You measure the heat of our Liuers with the bitternes of your gals.
1617. Markham, Caval., I. 4. All the bitternesse and sharpenesse … of the Winter.
1711. Steele, Spect., No. 262, ¶ 6. The Bitterness of Party.
1732. Arbuthnot, Rules of Diet, i. 249. A small degree of Bitterness, extremely agreeable to the Stomach.
1814. Scott, Wav., xxxiii. A sentiment of bitterness rose in his mind against the government.
1851. Dixon, W. Penn, xxvi. (1872), 237. A prince who had tasted the bitterness of persecution.
† f. concr. A trait of bitterness, anything bitter.
1382. Wyclif, Job xiii. 26. Thou writist aȝen me bitternessis [1611 bitter things].
1790. G. Walker, Serm., II. xx. 104. The disappointments, vexations, and bitternesses of life.
