an epithet given to all bodies of an opposite taste to sweetness. For the medical virtues of bitters, see Materia Medica.

a sea-term, signifying any turn of the cable about the bits, so as that the cable may be let out by little and little. And when a ship is stopped by a cable, she is said to be brought up by a bitter. Also that end of the cable which is wound about the bits is called the bitter end of the cable.