splenetic means bad-tempered, irritable, peevish, spiteful, habitually angry. It carries an Arena rating of 1791, earned across 36 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, splenetic ranks #902 of 17,104 for Most Storied Words, #1,343 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #2,903 of 17,138 for Most Incisive Words, #3,000 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books.
splenetic is pronounced /spləˈnɛtɪk/.
Why “splenetic” is a great word
Marked by peevish, irritable, and spiteful ill-humor, a disposition historically attributed to the bodily spleen. From Late Latin *spleneticus*, from Latin *splen* ("spleen"), the sense of irritability stems from the ancient belief that anger or melancholy originated from that organ. Unlike "irascible," which suggests a hot-tempered, quick-to-anger nature, or "melancholic," which denotes pensive sadness, *splenetic* implies a chronic, low-grade venom—a malice that curdles rather than combusts. It is the muttered insult in the committee room, the petty marginalia scrawled in a borrowed book, the deliberate slowness of a clerk repaying the world in exacting, quiet coin. It is bitterness made a permanent residence, the spleen not as passing organ but as lifelong landlord.
Etymology
The adjective form of spleen, borrowed from Late Latin spleneticus, from Latin splen. Anger was traditionally believed to originate from the fluids of the spleen.
adj
- Bad-tempered, irritable, peevish, spiteful, habitually angry.e.g.“A sect, whose chief devotion lies / In odd perverse antipathies; / […] / More peevish, cross, and splenetick, / Than dog distract, or monkey sick.” — 1662 (indicated as 1663), [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678; republished
- Related to the spleen.e.g.“I have already described the general protuberance of the abdomen among the children throughout the Messaria and the Carpas districts, all of whom are more or less affected by splenetic diseases.” — 1879, Sir Samuel White Baker, Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879
noun
- A person affected with spleen.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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