piquant

Causing hurt feelings; scathing, severe.

Stimulating to the senses; engaging; charming.

Their husbands […] leave home to seek for more agreeable, may I be allowed to use a significant French word, piquant society […]

He looked after her as she retreated, with a fondness which was rendered more piquant, as it were, by the mixture of a certain scorn which accompanied it.

Favorably stimulating to the palate; pleasantly spicy; tangy.

Pork Chops with Apple and Port These chops are baked in a piquant sauce containing fruit, honey, cinnamon, lemon and port, all of which reduces to a spicy syrup.

Elsewhere in South America, excepting Bahia in Brazil, one does not encounter piquant cuisine, although one may stumble on a piquant dish now and then […]

Producing a burning sensation due to the presence of chilies or similar spices; spicy, hot.