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• s  sour or bitter in taste
• s  harsh or corrosive in tone
  an acerbic tone piercing otherwise flowery prose

• In Linklater's acerb subUrbia, a kind of strip-mall Rent without the singing (or quite so much self-pity), she plays a rock publicist who mingles dangerously with the lowlifes.
• The dialogue is breezy, the tone acerb and the climax as predictably uplifting as Rocky's.
• Put together Donaldson's blunt demeanor and Will's ideological questions on This Week with David Brinkley, and Brinkley, who once seemed acerb, comes out courtly by contrast.

• acerbic
• astringent
• acid
• acrid
• bitter
• blistering
• caustic
• sulfurous
• sulphurous
• virulent
• vitriolic