🔊 Listen to the word Acrimonious

ak-rih-MOH-nee-us

Definition

(adjective) Angry and bitter in manner or tone; filled with ill will and resentment that makes any resolution feel impossible.

Example

The divorce proceedings were so acrimonious that the attorneys on both sides later said they’d never seen a settlement table that hostile — and both had been practicing for twenty years.

Word Origin

Acrimonious derives from the Latin acrimonia, meaning “sharpness” or “pungency” — from acer, meaning “sharp” or “keen.” The same root gives us acrid, acerbic, and acumen — all words built around the image of something pointed and penetrating. It entered English in the 17th century, initially describing sharp, biting speech before expanding into its broader sense of the bitter, resentful quality that poisons relationships and makes disagreement feel permanent rather than resolvable.