bitterness

Etymology

From Middle English bitternesse, biternesse, from Old English biternes (“bitterness; grief”), equivalent to bitter + -ness.

noun

1. The quality of having a bitter taste.
2. The quality of feeling bitter; acrimony, resentment; the quality of exhibiting such feelings.
   She kept her bitterness about her mistreatment for the rest of her life.
   the bitterness of his words
   She suspected that during the summer her father had mentioned Brian’s windfall to Billy and that father and son had then traded snidenesses and bitternesses about the W—— Corporation and bourgeois Robin and leisure-class Brian. 2001, Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections
3. The quality of eliciting a bitter, humiliating or harsh feeling.
   Nothing could assuage the bitterness of their defeat.
4. Harsh cold.
   The bitterness of the winter caught us all by surprise.