mordacious
/mɔːˈdeɪʃəs
/adjective formal
1Denoting or using biting sarcasm or invective.You've barely spoken a word all night, and haven't uttered so much as one mordacious comment....
- His mordacious warnings about the bleak future of NATO.
- The more he intermingles mordacious taunts with earnest reflections on the feelings of a man suffocated by a less than satisfying matrimony, the harder it is to take him seriously.
2(Of a person or animal) given to biting.A small-scale musical in which that mordacious man-about-necks (Dracula) figures prominently.
Origin
Mid 17th century: from Latin mordax, mordac- 'biting' + -ious.
Rhymes
- sternness
- Sterno
- sternocleidomastoid
- sternocleidomastoid muscle
- sternomastoid
- sternpost
- sternsheets
- sternum
- sternutation
- sternutator
- sternutatory
- sternwards
- sternway
- sternwheeler
- steroid
- steroidal
- sterol
- stertorous
- stertorously
- stet
- stethoscope
- stethoscoped
- stethoscopic
- stethoscopically
- stethoscopist