saturnine
Americanadjective
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sluggish in temperament; gloomy; taciturn.
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suffering from lead poisoning, as a person.
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due to absorption of lead, as bodily disorders.
adjective
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having a gloomy temperament; taciturn
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archaic
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of or relating to lead
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having or symptomatic of lead poisoning
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Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of saturnine
1400–50; late Middle English < Medieval Latin sāturnīnus ( see Saturn, -ine 1)
Explanation
Medieval alchemists ascribed to the planet Saturn a gloomy and slow character. When people are called saturnine, it means they are like the planet — gloomy, mean, scowling. Not exactly the life of the party. Saturnine is a word you don't hear often nowadays, though you probably know people with saturnine dispositions. The ultimate saturnine character in literature is Heathcliff — and for clarification's sake, that would be the bitter, brooding, obsessive hero of Wuthering Heights, not the lovably pudgy cat of comic-strip fame.
Vocabulary lists containing saturnine
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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The New SAT: Words to Capture Tone
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Did You Planet? Words With Surprisingly Spacey Origins
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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.
Slatkin noted that the recording, released in 1955, didn’t sell well, probably thanks to the album cover’s saturnine painting of a composer that few would recognize.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 12, 2025
The saturnine darkness of Connery answers the strangeness and anxieties in Tippi Hedren’s mysterious Marnie.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 25, 2020
When “Studio 54” screened at Sundance in 2018, the audience hissed every time Mr. Cohn’s saturnine image flashed on the screen.
From New York Times ● Sep. 1, 2019
Lilli Palmer is a saturnine icon in the Marlene Dietrich mold.
From The New Yorker ● Sep. 26, 2018
Hugh Hungerford was slim and saturnine, long-legged, long-faced, clad in faded finery.
From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin
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.
