Meanings
- rareuncountablepuristic or science fictionOxygen.
This is approximately the heat of exploding what the Germans call bang-gas (mixture of sourstuff and waterstuff), the result being liquid.
1887, The Electrical journal, volume 18, page 4823 more examples
For an outshow, the gang of water has two waterstuff unclefts bound to one sourstuff uncleft; the gang of rust has two iron and three sourstuff unclefts; [...]
1976, Poul Anderson, HomebrewThus, everyday sourstuff has eight neitherbits with its eight firstbits, but there are also kinds with five, six, seven, nine, ten, and eleven neitherbits. A samestead is known by the tale of both kernel motes, so that we have sourstuff-13, sourstuff-14, and so on, with sourstuff-16 being by far the mostfound.
1997, Poul Anderson, All One Universe, →ISBN“Best you and your thane don your sourstuff masks now, Judge Scoglund,” Ankowaljuu said, returning to English so Park and Dunedin could not misunderstand him.
2013, Harry Turtledove & L. Sprague deCamp, Down in the Bottomlands: And Other Places, →ISBN
Synonyms & antonyms
Origin
- Frenchoxygène
- Dutchzuurstof“oxygen”
- GermanSauerstoff“oxygen”
- Englishsourstuff
From sour + stuff. Calque of German Sauerstoff (“oxygen”) and/or Dutch zuurstof (“oxygen”), both loose loan translations of French oxygène. See oxygen for more.
More words from German, Dutch, French
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
sourstuff. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sourstuff
“sourstuff.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sourstuff. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “sourstuff,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sourstuff.
Source: sourstuff on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.