acrid

Etymology

From Latin ācris, from ācer (“sharp”); probably assimilated in form to acid. Compare eager.

adj

1. Sharp and harsh, or bitter and not to the taste.
   Sodium polyacrylate is an acrid salt.
   Since the mid-1980s, when Indonesia first began to clear its bountiful forests on an industrial scale in favour of lucrative palm-oil plantations, “haze” has become an almost annual occurrence in South-East Asia. The cheapest way to clear logged woodland is to burn it, producing an acrid cloud of foul white smoke that, carried by the wind, can cover hundreds, or even thousands, of square miles. 2013-06-29, “Unspontaneous combustion”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, page 29
2. Causing heat and irritation.
   The bombardier beetle sprays acrid secretions to defend itself.
3. (figurative) Caustic; bitter; bitterly irritating.
   That man has an acrid temper.
   In a chaotic, 90-minute back-and-forth, the two major party nominees expressed a level of acrid contempt for each other unheard-of in modern American politics. 2020-09-29, Jonathan Martin, Alexander Burns, “With Cross Talk, Lies and Mockery, Trump Tramples Decorum in Debate With Biden”, in New York Times