BITTERSWEET • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Bittersweet

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/bˈɪtərswˌit/ Listen

adjective

Bittersweet adj. Sweet and then bitter or bitter and then sweet; esp. sweet with a bitter after taste; hence (Fig.), pleasant but painful.

noun

Bittersweet n.

Anything which is bittersweet.

A kind of apple so called.

(Bot.)

(a)

A climbing shrub, with oval coral-red berries (Solanum dulcamara); woody nightshade. The whole plant is poisonous, and has a taste at first sweetish and then bitter. The branches are the officinal dulcamara.

(b)

An American woody climber (Celastrus scandens), whose yellow capsules open late in autumn, and disclose the red aril which covers the seeds; also called Roxbury waxwork.

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Etymology of 'Bittersweet'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Bittersweet" Quotes from Famous Books

... the rivulet loiters and stops, The bittersweet hangs from the tops Of the alders and cherries Its bunches of beautiful ...

— Lyrics of Earth • Archibald Lampman

... help. The hall, the sitting-room, the drawing-room, and even Pitt's particular, out-of-the-way work-room, all were wreathed and adorned and dressed up, each after its manner. For Pitt would not have one place a repetition of another. The bright berries of the winterberry and bittersweet were mingled with the dark shade of the evergreens in many ingenious ways; but the crowning triumph of art, perhaps, to Esther's eyes, was a motto in green letters, picked out with brilliant partridge berries, over the end of the sitting-room,—'Peace on earth.' Esther ...

— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner

... friend now! She could sting, but she could make honey too. Bittersweet. I went with her ...

— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty