saturnine means of a person: having a tendency to be cold and gloomy. It carries an Arena rating of 1998, earned across 13 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, saturnine ranks #32 of 42,747 for Qualifying, #548 of 17,104 for Most Storied Words, #1,253 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #2,101 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words.
saturnine is pronounced /ˈsætənaɪn/.
Why “saturnine” is a great word
Having a gloomy, morose, or sardonic temperament. From Middle English, from Medieval Latin Sāturnīnus ('of or pertaining to the planet Saturn'), from Sāturnus ('the Roman god and planet Saturn') + -īnus ('of or pertaining to'), first attested mid-15th century; the association of the planet Saturn with a cold, sluggish, and melancholy temperament in medieval astrology gave rise to the modern sense. Unlike "melancholic," which implies a pensive or poetic sadness, or "dour," which suggests stern severity, saturnine denotes a bitter, silent, and brooding gloom. It is the chill of a stone left in shadow, the taste of black coffee gone cold, and the slow, unsmiling gaze of someone who believes little and is disappointed less—a heaviness of spirit as old and as certain as the weight of a heavy metal.
Etymology
From Middle English saturnine, satournine, satournyne, saturnin, saturnyn, saturnyne (“pertaining to or under the influence of the planet Saturn; line on the palm of the hand associated with Saturn”), from Old French saturnine, saturnin (modern French saturnin (“of, pertaining to, resembling or containing lead, plumbic”)), or directly from its etymon Medieval Latin Sāturnīnus, from Sāturnus (“the Roman god Saturn; the planet Saturn”) + -īnus (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’); analysable as Saturn + -ine. The English word is cognate with Italian saturnino (“saturnine”), Portuguese saturnino (“melancholy, saturnine; pertaining to the planet Saturn”), Spanish saturnino (“melancholy, saturnine; pertaining to the planet Saturn”). Sense 1 (“having a tendency to be cold, bitter, gloomy, etc.
adj
- Of a person: having a tendency to be cold and gloomy.
- Of a setting: depressing, dull, gloomy.
- Synonym of leaden, of or related to the metal lead, associated with the planet Saturn in European alchemy.
- Caused or affected by lead poisoning (saturnism).
- Pertaining to the astrological influence of the planet Saturn; having the characteristics of a person under such influence (see sense 1).
- Belonging to or resembling butterflies of the family Saturnidae.
- Of or relating to the ancient Roman god Saturn.e.g.“sacrificial murder in Saturnine rites” — 2016, Anna Klosowska Roberts, Queer Love in the Middle Ages, page 29:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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