bittersweet

adj

1. Both bitter and sweet.

   “bittersweet chocolate”

   “The dark green mooncake is loaded with matcha-infused salted egg yolk custard, which gives a bittersweet taste.”

2. (figuratively)Expressing contrasting emotions of pain and pleasure.

   “The break-up was very bittersweet; they both hurt to end it, but were glad it was over.”

   “[…] sensations of this kind, however delicious, are, at their first recognition, of a very tumultuous nature, and have very little of the opiate in them. They were, moreover, in the present case, embittered with certain circumstances, which being mixed with sweeter ingredients, tended altogether to compose a draught that might be termed bitter-sweet […]”

   “Her eyes still shone upon the ground, and still she prolonged the bittersweet delight at seeing this humiliation of both soul and body by asking the one question whose reply would complete her sad success.”

   “He sat beside the busy street, There, where he last had seen her face: And thronging memories, bitter-sweet, Seemed yet to haunt the ancient place:”

   “While the final festivities were bittersweet, David and Lisa insisted on a party rather than a funeral.”

3. Of bittersweet color (see the noun section, below).

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)Bittersweet nightshade (Solanum dulcamara).

   “Bitter ſweete bringeth foorth wooddie ſtalks as doth the Vine, parted into many ſlender creeping braunches, by which it climeth and taketh holde of hedges and ſhrubbes next vnto it. […] Bitter ſweet doth grow in moiſt places about ditches, riuers, and hedges, almoſt euery where.”

2. (countable, uncountable)Bittersweetness.

   “I had once before visited these three villages, Skedans, Tanoo and Cumshewa. The bitter-sweet of their overwhelming loneliness created a longing to return to them.”

3. (US, countable, uncountable)A vine, of the genus Celastrus, having small orange fruit that open to reveal red seeds.

   “Over by the creek-bed scarlet-flamed sumac shouldered the silver-green of the willows, and orange-colored bittersweet crept through the tangle of wild plums.”

4. (countable, uncountable)A variety of apple with a bittersweet taste.

   “"They had a good crop of bitter-sweets, they couldn’t grind them all"—nodding towards an orchard where some heaps of apples had been left lying ever since the ingathering.”

5. (countable, uncountable)Any variety of clam in the family Glycymerididae
6. (countable, uncountable)A pinkish-orange color. Any color in between scarlet and orange.