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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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.
Bilious dread vied with adrenal joy throughout, sometimes within the space of a single performance.
From The Guardian • Oct. 27, 2010
The Colonel was to haunt Harold Ickes like the cloaked villain in a melodrama, sometimes under the Ickesian aliases of "McComic" or "Bilious Bertie, the bingy bully."
From Time Magazine Archive
Bilious, outrageous and full of flinty, funny challenge, Faust has undergone sardonic transformation from what the author calls Goethe's "big brain thing" into a fleet Newmanesque parable of eliding destinies and colliding cultures.
From Time Magazine Archive
He rejected it, switched to the Chicago Tribune and became a regular reporter Bilious Bertie.
From Time Magazine Archive
Dr. Sharpe could not have made much progress in Bilious Affections that evening.
From Men, Women, and Ghosts by Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart
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.
