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

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

A hot and dry person was thought to be choleric and ruled by yellow bile, associated with childhood and summer.

From Washington Post

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.

From New York Times

The human body contained four viscous liquids or “humors”: phlegm, blood, yellow bile and black bile.

From New York Times

Galen, the Greco-Roman physician of the second century, argued that all human pathology could be conceptualized as imbalances of humors—black bile, yellow bile, blood, and phlegm.

From The New Yorker