spleen
/spliːn/
spleen noun: in vertebrates, including humans, a ductless vascular gland, located in the upper left abdomen near the stomach, which destroys old red blood cells, removes debris from the bloodstream, acts as a reservoir of blood, and produces lymphocytes.
Noun
spleen (countable and uncountable, plural spleens)
- In vertebrates, including humans, a ductless vascular gland, located in the upper left abdomen near the stomach, which destroys old red blood cells, removes debris from the bloodstream, acts as a reservoir of blood, and produces lymphocytes.
- A bad mood; spitefulness. Compare gall.
- In noble minds some dregs remain, / Not yet purged off, of spleen and sour disdain.1711 May, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Criticism, London: […] W[illiam] Lewis […]; and sold by W[illiam] Taylor […], T[homas] Osborn[e] […], and J[ohn] Graves […], →OCLC
- Too many, however, who might take an honourable stand, fear the petty spleen of the plantocracy; preferring the most disgusting adulation, to the blessing of him ready to perish.1843, “A Voice from Trinidad”, in Colonial Magazine and Commercial-maritime Journal, page 465
- A sudden motion or action; a fit; a freak; a whim.
- A thousand spleens bear her a thousand ways.
Brief as the lightning in the collied night; That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and Earth1593, [William Shakespeare], Venus and Adonis, London: […] Richard Field, […], →OCLC
- A thousand spleens bear her a thousand ways.
- Melancholy; hypochondriacal affections.
- Bodies changed to various forms by spleen.1712 May, [Alexander Pope], “The Rape of the Locke. An Heroi-comical Poem.”, in Miscellaneous Poems and Translations. […], London: […] Bernard Lintott […], →OCLC, canto
- There is a luxury in self-dispraise: / And inward self-disparagement affords / To meditative spleen a grateful feast.1814, William Wordsworth, The Excursion
- A fit of immoderate laughter or merriment.
- By virtue, thou enforcest laughter ; thy silly thought, my spleenc. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
Verb
spleen (third-person singular simple present spleens, present participle spleening, simple past and past participle spleened)
- To dislike.
- T. Wentworth ſpleen'd the Bishop1693, John Hacket, Scrinia Reserata
- To annoy or irritate.
- There had been a good deal of provocation, we have no doubt, before the republican simplicity, at which Mrs Trollope seems to have been so justly offended, was spleened into speaking of the old woman.1832, The Edinburgh Review: Or Critical Journal - Volume 111, page 488
- If you want to know why I am always spleening her, it is because I am always elsewhere with friends, and disseminating so much currency, and performing so many things that can spleen a mother.2013, Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated
- To complain; to rail; to vent one's spleen.
- It was satisfactory to a majority of the bolters, but most of the democrats spleened against him.1883, Frank Abial Flower, Life of Matthew Hale Carpenter, page 292
- He never counseled litigation for the sake of litigation, and no client ever complained of his loyalty, He hated sham and pretense, and openly spleened at the empty mouthing oracle of the street corner, the society, or the church.1904, Philip Loring Spooner, Abram Daniel Smith, Wisconsin Reports, page xliv
- To remove the spleen, or, by extension, to gore.
- Nor did they only take Townes, kill such as made resistance, and rob houses, with the Licentiousnesse and Avarice of Souldiers, but with barbarous Inhumanity spared no age nor modesty; tyrannizing over the Rest and Monuments of the dead, which they spleened as much as the Living;1667, Famianus Strada, The History of the Low-Countrey Warres, page 75
- I grant a good deal to Grecian pride of prose, and Roman fund of poesy, when spleened and gored to shame, defeat, and loss of prestige, on the battle-field by mere "barbaric" ( ? ) troops of Cimbric Hyperborean Celts.1866, John Jones Thomas, Britannia Antiquissima, page 79
- To excise or remove.
- That will be how we lose what we have gained, The incremental rapture at the core, Spleened of the belly's thick placental wrath, And the seed's roar.1996, William Everson, Clif Ross, William Everson: The Light the Shadow Casts, page 105
- Picking up where I left off...broken down, knowing they'd pick through my bones like vultures for what marrow they hadn't already spleened from me.2006, Chris Eann, Lord Buddha: Book of Omens, page 45
spleen meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
spleen in Hindi
- organ
- तिल्ली tillī, प्लीहा plīhā, पिलई pilaī, तिहाल tihāl
spleen in Tamil
- organ
- மண்ணீரல் maṇṇīral
spleen in Marathi
- organ
- प्लीहा plīhā
spleen in Urdu
- organ
- تللی tilī
More languagesFewer languages
- spleen in Bengali
- প্লীহা pliha
- spleen in Telugu
- ప్లీహము plīhamu
- spleen in Malayalam
- പ്ലീഹ plīha
- spleen in Kannada
- ತೊರಳೆ, ತೊರಳಿ, ತೊಳಲೆ, ತೊಳ್ಳೆ
- spleen in Gujarati
- પ્લીહા plīhā
- spleen in Odia
- ପ୍ଲୀହା
- spleen in Sanskrit
- प्लीहन् plīhán
- spleen in Nepali
- प्लीहा, प्लीहामा, प्लीहालाई
- spleen in Tagalog
- pali
- spleen in Arabic
- طِحَال ṭiḥāl
- spleen in Malay
- limpa, pelih, kura
- spleen in Indonesian
- limpa, kura, lien
- spleen in Persian
- طحال tahâl, اسپرز esporz, سپرز seporz, اسبل esbol
- spleen in Thai
- ม้าม máam
- spleen in Vietnamese
- lách, lá lách
- spleen in Myanmar
- သရက်ရွက် sa.rak-rwak
- Dhivehi
- ހުންކޮށި hun̊koṣi
Examples of spleen in a sentence
- The name I like best, however, I heard uttered by the Eldest Son of the House of Chou, who in a moment of spleen referred to his colleague of the House of Liang as hsiao chu-tan, the Little Pig’s Egg.1929, Owen Lattimore, “The Black Gobi”, in The Desert Road To Turkestan, Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, →OCLC, page 227:
- Sullen now, with stultified spleen, Mrs Dibble grappled her crutches and levered herself upright after an ungainly struggle.1950, Norman Lindsay, Dust or Polish?, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 150:
- When he phoned the old man in Idaho, Herman Zaunbrecher spleened “no dothead fucking quack's gonna treat my boy like a lab rat” and ordered the surgeon to put Randall on the next flight to Boise.2021, John Ritter, Fatal Conceit:
- "That is true," quoth Albertu, “but pray consider on the other side that animals spleened grow extremely salacious, an experiment well known in dogs."1892, George Atherton Aitken, George A. Aitken, John Arbuthnot, The Life and Works of John Arbuthnot, M.D, page 328:
Synonyms of spleen
Forms of spleen
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | spleens |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | spleens |
| present participle | spleening |
| past participle | spleened |
| past | spleened |
Origin of spleen
From Middle English splene, splen, from Anglo-Norman espleen and Old French esplein, esplen, from Latin splēn (“milt”), from Ancient Greek σπλήν (splḗn, “the spleen”). Doublet of lien. Partially displaced the native English term milt.
Words formed from spleen
Phrases with spleen
Words that rhyme with spleen
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- glean
- between
- byzantine
- canteen
- greene
- preen
- Racine
- careen
- intervene
- lean
- wean
- Christine
- obscene
- routine
- skene
- submarine
- cuisine
- gasoline
- irene
- red bean
- serene
- -ene
- baleen
- demean
- eleventeen
- fascine
- gombeen
- latrine
- pristine
- Qazvin
- sheen
- tangerine
- unclean
- unseen
- vaccine
- amine
- aquamarine
- Beane
- beseen
- bottine
- chopine
- Enigma machine
- Eugene
- gene
- in between
- internecine
- jean
- lien
Questions about spleen
- What does spleen mean?
- Spleen means in vertebrates, including humans, a ductless vascular gland, located in the upper left abdomen near the stomach, which destroys old red blood cells, removes debris from the bloodstream, acts as a reservoir of blood, and produces lymphocytes.
- What is spleen in Hindi?
- Spleen in Hindi is तिल्ली (tillī), प्लीहा (plīhā), पिलई (pilaī). See Spleen meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use spleen in a sentence?
- The name I like best, however, I heard uttered by the Eldest Son of the House of Chou, who in a moment of spleen referred to his colleague of the House of Liang as hsiao chu-tan, the Little Pig’s Egg.
- What part of speech is spleen?
- Spleen can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce spleen?
- Spleen is pronounced /spliːn/.
- What is the plural of spleen?
- The plural of spleen is spleens.
Words near spleen in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: spleen (page history and authors); spleen (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); પ્લીહા (Gujarati) (page history and authors); spleen (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); प्लीहन् (Sanskrit) (page history and authors); spleen (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-AcpoKrane-spleen.wav.
Cite this entry: “spleen.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/spleen. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.