atrabilious

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atrabilious

/ˌæ.tɹəˈbɪl.i.əs/

Where it comes from

From Latin ātra bīlis (“black bile”) (āter (“dark, black”) + bīlis (“bile”)) + -ous (“full of”), referring to the humour which ancient Hippocratic and later Galenic medicine associated with sadness and despondency.

adjective more atrabilious · most atrabilious

obsolete Having an excess of black bile. [I] could see nothing in the evidence which did persuade me to think them other than poor, melancholy, envious, mischievous, ill-disposed, ill-dieted, atrabilious constitutions.
Characterized by melancholy. But the torch of taste has for the moment fallen into the hands of little men, anæmic and atrabilious, with neither laughter nor pity in their hearts.
Similar: sad
Ill-natured; malevolent; cantankerous. Why is it that all those who have become eminent in philosophy or politics or poetry or the arts are clearly of an atrabilious temperament, and some of them to such an extent as to be affected by diseases caused by black bile, as is said to have happened to Heracles among the heroes? For he appears

Similar: lamentable, irritable

Thesaurus

adjective

Similar: lamentable, irritable

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MLA

"atrabilious." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/atrabilious. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

atrabilious. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/atrabilious

Chicago

"atrabilious." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/atrabilious.

BibTeX

@misc{atrabilious_2026,
  title = {atrabilious},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/atrabilious},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}