yellow bile

American  

noun

1. one of the four elemental bodily humors of medieval physiology, regarded as causing anger; choler.

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yellow bile British  

noun

1. archaic one of the four bodily humours, choler

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Etymology

Origin of yellow bile

First recorded in 1880–85

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

yellow bile

The four-humors theory—that illness came from imbalances in blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile—was “common sense” to them.

From Slate ● Sep. 26, 2025

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.

From National Geographic ● Nov. 29, 2023

Phlegm, blood and yellow bile were all thought to rule human bodies and behaviors, affecting everything from attitude to interests and fueling disease.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 7, 2022

For millennia, the human body was understood as a vessel for a quartet of liquids: yellow bile, black bile, white phlegm, and red blood.

From The New Yorker ● Jan. 7, 2019

It shows a half-man, half-woman surrounded by the signs of the zodiac and the four "humors" that for centuries doctors believed controlled health—blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile.

From "Phineas Gage" by John Fleischman