Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Inclined to melancholy.
- adjective Having a peevish disposition; surly.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Affected as if by black bile; melancholic or hypochondriacal; splenetic. See
atrabile .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Melancholic or hypochondriac; atrabiliary.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective characterized by
melancholy - adjective
ill-natured ;malevolent
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective irritable as if suffering from indigestion
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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I suggest "atrabilious", from the Latin for black bile, thought by the ancients to be one of the body's four "humours".
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph Hubert van den Bergh 2012
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I suggest "atrabilious", from the Latin for black bile, thought by the ancients to be one of the body's four "humours".
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph Hubert van den Bergh 2012
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No doubt the usual cavalcade of atrabilious right-wing commentators will work overtime to try and distort Obama's remarks.
Jacob Heilbrunn: Obama's Ennobling Speech Jacob Heilbrunn 2011
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No doubt the usual cavalcade of atrabilious right-wing commentators will work overtime to try and distort Obama's remarks.
Jacob Heilbrunn: Obama's Ennobling Speech Jacob Heilbrunn 2011
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No doubt the usual cavalcade of atrabilious right-wing commentators will work overtime to try and distort Obama's remarks.
Jacob Heilbrunn: Obama's Ennobling Speech Jacob Heilbrunn 2011
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But despite the gloomy nonsense of certain atrabilious dreamers, the wonderful era of the Greeks was that of the reign of the courtesans.
Satyricon 2007
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Which makes what he said an atrabilious ranting I learned that word today HeHe.
White Mob Disrupts Black Meeting Nathaniel Livingston 2005
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But after encountering some of Mr. Nate Livingston's more atrabilious rantings, I now realize that not only is it possible for people to graduate without having learned fundamental skills such as reading and writing, but that it's possible for these same people to believe that Mr. Livingston does the things he does "for the children".
White Mob Disrupts Black Meeting Nathaniel Livingston 2005
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Upon a more particular inquiry about the symptoms, he was told that the blood was seemingly viscous, and salt upon the tongue; the urine remarkably acrosaline; and the faeces atrabilious and foetid.
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Aristotle, who says all great characters are more or less atrabilious, as Socrates and Plato and Hercules were, writes, that Lysander, not indeed early in life, but when he was old, became thus affected.
The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans Plutarch 2003
stpeter commented on the word atrabilious
See also atramentous.
January 14, 2007
chained_bear commented on the word atrabilious
"...he detected much of this same cheerfulness throughout the ship and something not very far from apparent unconcern, even in so atrabilious a soul as Killick."
--P. O'Brian, The Wine-Dark Sea, 254
March 16, 2008
yarb commented on the word atrabilious
See also atrabilarian.
March 17, 2008
knitandpurl commented on the word atrabilious
""These conditions are appalling," said Sir Dabber with an atrabilious shake of the head."
Under the Harrow by Mark Dunn, p 306
September 4, 2011
biocon commented on the word atrabilious
According to Oxford English Dictionary, atrabilious means "affected by black bile or ‘choler adust’; melancholy, hypochondriac; splenetic, acrimonious."
September 4, 2011