A thick glass bottle on a high shelf, holding a clear liquid that burns whatever it touches. That bottle is where the word starts. Everything else the word does today is that liquid, thrown in words instead.
可以想成高架子上的一只厚玻璃瓶，裡面裝著一種碰到什麼就灼傷什麼的透明液體。那只瓶子是這個字的起點。今天這個字在做的事，一種想法是把瓶裡的東西換成語言潑出去——落在人身上，一樣會留下傷。
From the word’s history
The packet traces vitriol through Old French to Medieval Latin vitriolum, from vitrum, glass: the sulphate crystals look glassy. The learner dictionary marks the acid sense as old use, and the other source marks the abusive-language sense as an extension of it — so the burning came first and the words came after.
來源把 vitriol 追到中世紀拉丁文 vitriolum，字根 vitrum 是「玻璃」——那些硫酸鹽結晶看起來亮得像玻璃。學習型字典把酸的意思標成舊用法，另一份把「惡毒的話」標成由它延伸而來。所以順序是清楚的：先有會灼傷的東西，後來才有會灼傷人的話。
Wiktionary, "vitriol"
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