Tasting or smelling of vinegar — sour, sharp, the way a pickle or a bad bottle of wine is. You use it when something is more sour than you expected, or sour when it should not be. A soup can go vinegary if you pour in too much; cheap wine that has sat open too long turns vinegary, and that is the polite way of saying it has gone bad. The word also gets used about people, though this is less common now. A vinegary person is sharp and unfriendly, quick with a cutting remark — a vinegary tone, a vinegary old aunt. The picture is the same: something that should be pleasant has gone sour. This use sounds a little bookish or old-fashioned; you meet it in novels more than in speech. Note the shape of it. This is vinegar with -y added, the same -y as in salty, sugary, milky. That -y is doing a soft job: it does not mean "contains vinegar" but "a bit like vinegar." So vinegary is usually a small complaint, not a description of the recipe.

酸溜溜的、有醋味的；(形容人)尖酸刻薄的。台灣日常講「有醋味」通常指食物太酸或酒放壞了；形容人時比較像「講話很酸」。