bittern

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈbɪtən/

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  • Homophones: bitten, Bitterne
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈbɪtəɹn/
• Rhymes: -ɪtə(ɹ)n

From Middle English bitour, botor, from Old French butor, from Gallo-Roman *butitaurus, a blend of Latin būtiō (“bittern”) and taurus (“bull, ox”).

bittern (plural bitterns)

1. Several bird species in the Botaurinae subfamily of the heron family Ardeidae.
   • 1819, Washington Irving, The Sketch Book, Rip Van Winkle:

     It is a great rock or cliff on the loneliest part of the mountains, and […] is known by the name of the Garden Rock. Near the foot of it is a small lake, the haunt of the solitary bittern, with water-snakes basking in the sun on the leaves of the pond-lilies which lie on the surface.

• Appendix: Animals
• Appendix:English collective nouns
• bumble

• bittern on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Botaurinae on Wikispecies.Wikispecies
• Category:Botaurinae on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons

From bitter with an unclear suffix, perhaps a dialect form of -ing.

bittern (countable and uncountable, plural bitterns)

1. The liquor remaining after halite (common salt) has been harvested from saline water (brine).
2. The saline substance added to soy milk to coagulate it as a primary step in the production of tofu.
   • 2019, “The Secrets of Tofu across Japan”, in Seasoning the Seasons‎, NHK World-Japan:

     Now we add the bittern.

3. (archaic) A very bitter compound of quassia, cocculus indicus, etc., used by fraudulent brewers in adulterating beer.

• Bittner, Britten