atrabilious
\a-truh-BIL-yuh s\
adjective
1. gloomy; morose; melancholy; morbid.
2. irritable; bad-tempered; splenetic.
Quotes
It was remarked by Aristotle, who was a long way the shrewdest and most scientific observer of antiquity, that all men of genius have been melancholic or atrabilious.
-- James Sully, "Genius and Insanity," The Popular Science Monthly, August 1885
Origin
Atrabilious comes from the Latin ātra bīlis meaning "black bile." Black bile is one of the four elemental bodily humors of medieval physiology, regarded as causing melancholy. Atrabilious entered English in the mid-1600s.
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