adjective
-
of or relating to the spleen
-
spiteful or irritable; peevish
-
obsolete full of melancholy
noun
Other Word Forms
- splenetically adverb
- unsplenetic adjective
- unsplenetically adverb
Etymology
Origin of splenetic
From the Late Latin word splēnēticus, dating back to 1535–45. See splen-, -etic
Explanation
Anyone who's splenetic is very cranky and even a little mean. If you want to have fun at the bowling alley, don't invite your splenetic cousin to come along — he always ends up hurting someone's feelings. Splenetic was originally used to describe anything having to do with the spleen, the blood-filtering organ in human bodies. Western medicine once attributed both physical health and personality to four "bodily humours," one of which was black bile, thought to be produced by the spleen. Doctors back then believed that black bile made people moody and cranky — in other words, splenetic. Though medicine has changed dramatically, you can still use this word for irritable, bad-tempered people.
Vocabulary lists containing splenetic
"The Tragedy of Hamlet," Vocabulary from Act 5
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Angry
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Irritable, List 2
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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.
These are things that just make us splenetic, things we fall in hate with, even though they are easily ignored.
From Washington Post • May 8, 2022
Parlá is loose with his fields of color, but never splenetic.
From New York Times • Mar. 8, 2020
But dragging a 16-year-old into this splenetic, self-serving bar brawl makes a dangerous new level of provocation that should not go unchallenged.
From The Guardian • Aug. 17, 2019
His older brother was into heavy-metal music, and Drnaso began to join him at concerts and record stores, developing a love for splenetic bands like Acid Bath and Agoraphobic Nosebleed.
From The New Yorker • Jan. 14, 2019
It is this quality which irritates Hamlet, who is otherwise in the whole of this scene in a particularly moralising and philosophic mood, and is by no means "splenetic and rash."
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.
