choler
Americannoun
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anger or ill humour
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archaic one of the four bodily humours; yellow bile See humour
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obsolete biliousness
Usage
What does choler mean? Choler means anger, irritability, or a generally bad temperament. Choler is more commonly used in its adjective form, choleric, meaning easily angered or generally bad-tempered. People described as choleric are grouchy all the time and prone to getting into arguments, often for very little reason. The word choler comes from the medieval notion that people’s personalities are based on the balance of four different types of elemental fluids in their body, called humors. One of these was called choler—another name for yellow bile. A choleric person was thought to be generally irritable due to the amount of choler in their body. Example: She was the kind of choleric person who would get into a fight over anything and everything.
Etymology
Origin of choler
1350–1400; Middle English colera < Medieval Latin, Latin cholera < Greek choléra cholera
Vocabulary lists containing choler
"The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet," Vocabulary from Act 1
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Excerpts from "The Taming of the Shrew"
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"The Tragedy of Hamlet," Vocabulary from Act 3
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Kudos & Choler Oedipus the King has stood well the test of 2,400 years, of almost every spoken tongue, of a multitude of translators, interpreters and tamperers.
From Time Magazine Archive
Choler At Woodbridge, N. J., Joseph Chotosh, 22, drove his automobile out of his garage into a mudhole.
From Time Magazine Archive
This Choler is not a meer Excrement, but on the contrary of singular Use in causing the Fermentation of the Chyle, and bringing it to perfection.
From The Compleat Surgeon or, the whole Art of Surgery explain'd in a most familiar Method. by Le Clerc, Charles Gabriel
Choler was rising in the assembly; but Simon, with that intuitive and inexplicable control which superior minds possess, almost unknowingly, over their associates, quelled the outburst of the flame by a single glance.
From Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 by Roby, John
They are Blood, Choler, Phlegm, and Melancholy, every one whereof produceth its particular Tumour: Thus the Blood produces the Phlegmon, Choler the Erysipelas, Phlegm the Oedema, and Melancholy the Scirrhus.
From The Compleat Surgeon or, the whole Art of Surgery explain'd in a most familiar Method. by Le Clerc, Charles Gabriel
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
