adjective
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of or relating to bile
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affected with or denoting any disorder related to excess secretion of bile
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informal (esp of colours) extremely distasteful; nauseating
a bilious green
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informal bad-tempered; irritable
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of bilious
First recorded in 1535–45; from Latin bīliōsus; see origin at bile, -ous
Explanation
If an unpleasant meal has left you feeling grumpy and looking green, you're bilious in several senses of the word. This adjective can mean both "troubled by indigestion" and "irritable," and it can also be used to suggest a sickly green shade. The wonderfully descriptive word bilious comes from the root bile, which is a foul green fluid made in the liver and stored in the gall bladder — a fact that helps us picture something described as bilious as being really foul. Because of the connection with bile, we often refer to something that's an ugly shade of green as being bilious. Of course, the word can also be more kindly applied to someone who has a liver or gall bladder disorder.
Vocabulary lists containing bilious
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A Wrinkle in Time
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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.
What he actually wrote was “dogs bark it, asses and mules bray it, and bilious bipeds whistle it.”
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 12, 2024
The plant grew to shrublike proportions and, for more months of the year than not, was adorned with slightly bilious Pepto-pink flowers.
From Seattle Times • Aug. 6, 2022
These, too, I left amid the bilious contents of my drafts folder.
From New York Times • Apr. 28, 2022
But here he's usually in on the joke versus playing the buffoon, and suffers the silliness of his employer with the tolerance of a parent with a bilious child.
From Salon • Jan. 2, 2022
Their eyes met, and what she saw in the bilious melange of green and orange was not shock, or guilt, but a form of challenge, or even triumph.
From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan
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.
