sourer...

[Silversky]

Is "sourer" a word, as in to be more sour?

Thanks

[SeaJayPea]

Not according to my Chambers, it isn't. Suggest 'more sour' sounds better

[Quizmonster]

Click here for the appropriate yourdictionary web-page. It's listed there. I suppose Chambers doesn't include it on the basis that something either is or isn't sour and that there are no degrees of sourness. However, if we can have degrees of sweetnes...sweeter/sweetest...I can see no reason why we can't have degrees of sourness. Three-week old milk will probably be sourer than three-day old milk. (Nevertheless, I can't imagine ever seeing 'bitterer'! Too clumsy.)

[lafrancaise]

Only adjectives with one syllable or adjectives with two syllables which end in -y add the -er. You say more ..... for the others. That's the basic rule

[Quizmonster]

Imagine you have knocked at the door of someone who you know will recognise your voice. "Who is it?" comes the query from within. Do you reply, "It's I" or do you reply, "It's me"?
I actually know the answer to my question, as just about everybody - apart from an especially pernickety professor of linguistics perhaps - says, "It's me." This is despite the fact that "the basic rule" is that the verb 'to be', in whatever form, does not take the objective case in following nouns or pronouns.
Describing a miserable person, I certainly would not hesitate to write, "He has the sourest face I have ever seen." I simply cannot imagine writing, "He has the most sour face I have ever seen."

[dzug]

It's in the Scrabble word book so it ought to be in Chambers (on which it's based)

I'd have said yes anyway. 'This glass of juice is sourer that that one' sounds OK to be

[Quizmonkey]

The reason it sounds okay is that as soon as you add the -er the 'sour' bit reduces to one syllable - so that the resulting comparative is only two syllables in total. A perfectly fine word.

Curiouser and curiouser...