acidly

acid +‎ -ly

acidly (comparative more acidly, superlative most acidly)

1. sourly; tartly
   • 1882, Herman Charles Merivale, chapter 15, in Faucit Of Balliol‎, London: Chapman & Hall, page 385:

     Perchance, when you are speculating why he is so acidly disposed some morning, he is but meditating upon that other half-hour which he wanted in bed, to bring his wits and his good-temper about him.

   • 1946, Mervyn Peake, “A Bloody Cheekbone”, in Titus Groan, London: Eyre & Spottiswoode:

     Flay involuntarily propels his gawky body forwards as he hears that his Lordship wants him, but he pulls himself up at the end of his first long step towards the door, and peers even more suspiciously and acidly at the youth in his immaculate black cloth.

   • 1974 October 21, “Ballet of Death”, in Time:

     In a brief two decades, the young British dramatists who railed angrily at the Establishment have been succeeded by caustic young playwrights who acidly mock the welfare state.

   • 2011, Henry Kissinger, quoting Deng Xiaoping, “Notes”, in On China‎, New York: Penguin Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 536:

     Commenting acidly on the loss of Vladivostok 115 years later (and on President Ford’s summit with Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev in that city), Deng Xiaoping told me that the different names given to the city by the Chinese and the Russians reflected their respective purposes: the Chinese name translated roughly as “Sea Slug,” while the Russian name meant “Rule of the East.” “I don’t think it has any other meaning except what it means at face value,” he added.

• acerbically

• acidyl, diacyl