Definition of "acetous" [a•ce•tous]

• Of, relating to, or producing acetic acid or vinegar. (adjective)
• Having an acetic taste; sour-tasting. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Having known Miss Hamilton for most of his life, he told Hay he had watched her pass from “the sweetness of natural womanhood … through the acetous fermentation of belated virginity into the hard cider of middle age.”"
• "But, apart from decomposition, there may be, and very usually is, a generation of gas within the stomach, from the acetous fermentation of vegetable matter (or within other cavities from other causes), sufficient to induce a distension which will bring the body to the surface."
• "It cannot be kept; acetous fermentation sets in at once, and presently it coagulates and corrupts."