atrabiliousness

Noun

atrabiliousness (uncountable)

1. (obsolete) The state or quality of having an excess of black bile.
   • Furthermore, the urine of some was both profuse and pale, autopsies showed that the dead had very swollen liver, blackened heart emitting a pale yellow liquid and later, black blood, black and semiputrefied spleen and lungs; atrabiliousness could be seen in their blood vessels, the dry stomach and...2001, Francisco Hernández with Rafael Chabrán, Cynthia L. Chamberlin, Simon Varey, transls., “On the Illness in New Spain in the Year 1576, Called Cocoliztli by the Indians”, in Simon Varey, editor...
   • The fruits are small oranges and are used in mixtures serving as preservative, antidote to bacteria, softening of the heat effects of diseases, atrabiliousness, debility, and infirmity.2010, Patrick E. Iroegbu, Healing Insanity: A Study of Igbo Medicine in Contemporary Nigeria, [Bloomington, Ind.]: Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN, page 488
2. Grumpiness, irritability, melancholy, moroseness
   • Of his [Samuel Johnson's] works; though they have little of originality, and his ſtyle has a certain atrabiliouſneſs, and his tiſſue of paragraphs an unpleaſing quaintneſs, it must be confeſſed that his Dictionary, Rambler, and the two imitative translations of tranſlations of Juvenal, &c. are very...1789, anonymous [Robert Potter], The Art of Criticism; as Exemplified in Dr. Johnson's Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, London: Printed for T. Hookham, New Bond Street, →OCLC, page 191
   • Drummond, whose gorge had risen at these evidences of hopeless incapacity and utter shiftlessness, was not relieved by the presence of Mrs. Reed – a soured, disappointed woman of forty, who still carried in her small dark eyes and thin handsome lips something of the bitterness and antagonism of the...1893, Bret Harte, The Works of Bret Harte: Sally Dows, and other Sketches [The Works of Bret Harte; 5], New York, N.Y.: McKinlay, Stone & Mackenzie, →OCLC, pages 20–21