Word.ws English Dictionary

black bile

black bile noun: one of the four humours of ancient and mediaeval physiology, that was believed to be secreted by the kidneys and spleen and to cause melancholy and sadness when present in excess.

Noun

black bile (uncountable)

  1. (historical) One of the four humours of ancient and mediaeval physiology, that was believed to be secreted by the kidneys and spleen and to cause melancholy and sadness when present in excess.
    • But these various pursuits did not banish all her cares, or carry off all her constitutional black bile.1788, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary: A Fiction
    • The problem with treating cancer surgically, Galen suggested, was that black bile was everywhere, as inevitable and pervasive as any fluid.2011, Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Emperor of all Maladies, Fourth Estate, page 49
    Synonyms:
    melancholy

black bile meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Arabic

black bile in Hindi

Translations
सौदा saudā

black bile in Tamil

கரும்பித்தம்

black bile in Urdu

the black bile , atrabilis; melancholy; hypochondria; frenzy, madness, insanity; love; desire, concupiscence; ambition
سودا saudā

black bile in Arabic

Translations
سَوْدَاء sawdāʔ
More languagesFewer languages
black bile in Persian
سودا sowdâ, گش سیاه goš-e siyâh

Synonyms of black bile

Origin of black bile

Calque of Latin ātra bīlis, itself a calque of Ancient Greek μελαγχολία (melankholía).

Questions about black bile

What does black bile mean?
Black bile means one of the four humours of ancient and mediaeval physiology, that was believed to be secreted by the kidneys and spleen and to cause melancholy and sadness when present in excess.
What is black bile in Hindi?
Black bile in Hindi is सौदा (saudā). See Black bile meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is black bile?
Black bile is a noun.

Words near black bile in the dictionary

  1. black bees
  2. black beetle
  3. black beetles
  4. black belt
  5. black belts
  6. black bile
  7. black bindweed
  8. black birch
  9. black birch tree
  10. black birch trees
  11. black birches

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: black bile (page history and authors); black bile (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); سودا (Urdu) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “black bile.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/black_bile. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.