spleeny

The man who thinks he is dying may be spleeny, but the man who says he is spleeny is, of the two, the one more likely to be dying.

The Darrow Enigma Melvin Linwood Severy

Hopewell was spleeny about it -- ya-as, indeed, he was.

Janice Day at Poketown Helen Beecher Long

"I've an idea I'm spleeny," he replied with a ghastly attempt at a smile.

The Darrow Enigma Melvin Linwood Severy

"Wal ', he 's poored away dreadful, but Aunt Lowize says he 's turned to git along all right now, and when Aunt Lowize gives hopes, it 's good hopes, she 's nachally so spleeny."

Vesty of the Basins Sarah P. McLean Greene 1895

It is such a mouth as we can imagine some remorseless inquisitor to have had -- that is, not an inquisitor filled with holy zeal for what he mistakenly thought the cause of Christ demanded, but a spleeny, envious, rancorous shaveling, who tortured men from hatred of their superiority to him, and sheer love of inflicting pain.

Andersonville — Volume 1 John McElroy 1887

It is such a mouth as we can imagine some remorseless inquisitor to have had -- that is, not an inquisitor filled with holy zeal for what he mistakenly thought the cause of Christ demanded, but a spleeny, envious, rancorous shaveling, who tortured men from hatred of their superiority to him, and sheer love of inflicting pain.

Andersonville John McElroy 1887

"But as it has been the custom from time immemorial for rewards to be offered for shedders of human blood, and many men whose respectability cannot be questioned have received rewards for services so rendered, I think that I shall pocket my share, and consider all three of you very weak and spleeny not to do the same."

The Gold Hunters' Adventures Or, Life in Australia William Henry Thomes 1859

Shakspeare's spirit was too catholic, too universal, to have allowed, in a work entirely his own, even his Wolsey to have made use of the term "a spleeny Lutheran;" yet neither in the passage in which this expression occurs, nor in the one above referred to, is the versification characteristic of Fletcher.

Notes and Queries, Number 78, April 26, 1851 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc Various 1852

I really want us to date, if only so we can break up and I can call him a spleeny swag-bellied ratsbane and a fobbing plume-plucked hedge-pig, and he can respond by shouting "Fie on thee, poxy harlot!" and then writing "You Can't Do That."

NOGOODFORME.COM 2010

In my attempts to prove a theory that people have become more spleeny over recent years, I'll make a bid in this column space to not offend, outrage or horrify a single person over the next two weeks.

City 2009