black bile

noun

1. one of the four elemental bodily humors of medieval physiology, regarded as causing gloominess.

black bile

noun

1. archaic,  one of the four bodily humours; melancholy See humour

Word History and Origins

Origin of black bile¹

First recorded in 1790–1800

Example Sentences

Take humoral theory: In the Middle Ages, the body was thought to consist of four liquid components called humors—blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm.

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“I think a toxic, black bile comes out every time you say something like that.”

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The Greek physician Hippocrates believed that people’s personalities were governed by the amounts of phlegm, blood, black bile and yellow bile that flowed through their bodies.

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Hellebore was prescribed in ancient Greece and the Middle Ages alike for its purgative effects, to rid the body of excess “black bile,” the imagined cause of melancholy.

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The ancient Greeks, for example, believed mental disorders arose when the digestive tract produced too much black bile.

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