Thanks to a new jar of pickled peppers i had (alongside Wickles) at lunch yesterday, tonight i finally stumbled upon the appropriate word to describe heat from chili peppers, as in registering on the Scoville scale.
Piquant!!!!!
And the bonus? I learned the Peter Piper tongue twister to boot!
For years i've been frustrated with the very limiting and ambiguous options of "hot" (temperature?) and "spicy" (containing spices does NOT equal packing heat, as I have learned from the Indians at one Northern Californian food court - frankly the adamant gal sounded hurt from years of having been misunderstood). I thought, "How lame is the English language if there is no such term to describe how chili peppers hurt your tongue?!"
Oh, but there is. I'm surprised and disappointed, myself included, that not more of the population is aware of this adjective nor employ it in our everyday dialog.
And whaddaya know? It is derived from French.
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