Part 594

Sour, n. A sour or acid substance; whatever produces a painful effect. Spenser.

Sour, v. t. [AS. s&?;rian to sour, to become sour.] 1. To cause to become sour; to cause to turn from sweet to sour; as, exposure to the air sours many substances.

So the sun's heat, with different powers, Ripens the grape, the liquor sours.

Swift.

2. To make cold and unproductive, as soil. Mortimer.

3. To make unhappy, uneasy, or less agreeable.

To sour your happiness I must report, The queen is dead.

Shak.

4. To cause or permit to become harsh or unkindly. "Souring his cheeks." Shak.

Pride had not sour'd nor wrath debased my heart.

Harte.

5. To macerate, and render fit for plaster or mortar; as, to sour lime for business purposes.

Sour, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Soured (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Souring.] To become sour; to turn from sweet to sour; as, milk soon sours in hot weather; a kind temper sometimes sours in adversity.

They keep out melancholy from the virtuous, and hinder the hatred of vice from souring into severity.

Addison.

Source (?), n. [OE. sours, OF. sourse, surse, sorse, F. source, fr. OF. sors, p. p. of OF. sordre, surdre, sourdre, to spring forth or up, F. sourdre, fr. L. surgere to lift or raise up, to spring up. See Surge, and cf. Souse to plunge or swoop as a bird upon its prey.] 1. The act of rising; a rise; an ascent. [Obs.]

Therefore right as an hawk upon a sours Up springeth into the air, right so prayers . . . Maken their sours to Goddes ears two.

Chaucer.

2. The rising from the ground, or beginning, of a stream of water or the like; a spring; a fountain.

Where as the Poo out of a welle small Taketh his firste springing and his sours.

Chaucer.

Kings that rule Behind the hidden sources of the Nile.

Addison.

3. That from which anything comes forth, regarded as its cause or origin; the person from whom anything originates; first cause.

This source of ideas every man has wholly in himself.

Locke.

The source of Newton's light, of Bacon's sense.

Pope.