vinegarish

Aiken being right would mean Eliot showing a "thin and vinegarish hostility towards the modern world" and sounding a note of "withered dogmatism".

But I am morally certain she has all sorts of vinegarish names for me.

We dote upon vinegarish old maids, self- righteous men, and canting women when they are exposed by narrative art, and especially when poetic justice wrecks them.