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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
bilious
adjective
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ a bilious green color
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ After all, it was only a bilious attack ... uncomfortable at the time, but it soon passed.
▪ Her mouth was filled with bilious acids that her stomach had sent up in sympathy.
▪ Lianas writhed towards the light from bilious decaying depths.
▪ On Monday the endless time to fill suddenly collapsed, for Mrs Dummett developed a violent bilious attack.
▪ One bilious attack would have been passed over as something that could happen to anyone; but two aroused suspicion.
▪ That warlock was a bloated, horned hermaphrodite draped in bilious green skin.
▪ We are told it was a bilious attack which had forced Désirée to take to her bed instead of the boards.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Bilious

Bilious \Bil"ious\ (b[i^]l"y[u^]s), a. [L. biliosus, fr. bilis bile.]

  1. Of or pertaining to the bile.

  2. Disordered in respect to the bile; troubled with an excess of bile; as, a bilious patient; dependent on, or characterized by, an excess of bile; as, bilious symptoms.

  3. Choleric; passionate; ill tempered. ``A bilious old nabob.''
    --Macaulay.

    Bilious temperament. See Temperament.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
bilious

1540s, "pertaining to bile, biliary," from French bilieux, from Latin biliosus "pertaining to bile," from bilis (see bile). Meaning "wrathful, peevish, ill-tempered" (as people afflicted with an excess of bile were believed to be) is attested from 1560s. This is the main modern sense in English and French; the more literal meaning being taken up by biliary. Related: Biliousness.

Wiktionary
bilious

a. 1 Suffering from real or supposed liver disorder, thus making one ill-natured. 2 Of or pertaining to something containing or consisting of bile. 3 irritable or bad tempered; irascible.

WordNet
bilious
  1. adj. relating to or containing bile [syn: biliary]

  2. suffering from or suggesting a liver disorder or gastric distress [syn: liverish, livery]

  3. irritable as if suffering from indigestion [syn: atrabilious, dyspeptic, liverish]

Usage examples of "bilious".

Persons of a lymphatic or bilious temperament often find that coffee disagrees with them, aggravating their troubles and causing biliousness, constipation, and headache, while tea proves agreeable and beneficial.

Its fresh root is bitter, and a milky juice flows from the rind, which is somewhat aperient and slightly sedative, so that this specially suits persons troubled with bilious torpor, and jaundice combined with melancholy.

Sick Headache, Bilious Headache, Dizziness, Constipation, Indigestion, Bilious Attacks, and all derangements of the stomach and bowels, are promptly relieved and permanently cured by the use of Dr.

Umm Nour seemed totally unaware that the towel-draped figure on the bed, with its slim white body and bilious head, was not the husband she was accustomed to, but a collection of stitched-together spare parts.

It was identical to its neighbours, built of a yellowy brick which must have been glaringly ugly when it was new, but it had weathered to a dull, bilious colour, darkened today by the rain.

This is a powerful antispasmodic, and has been successfully used in bilious colic, nausea, and spasm of the bowels.

Greenish flowers bestarred bilious marram grasses, their perfumes dust-clogged.

She is a hoary pandemonium of ills, enlarged glands, mumps, quinsy, bunions, hayfever, bedsores, ringworm, floating kidney, Derbyshire neck, warts, bilious attacks, gallstones, cold feet, varicose veins.

It is an occasional feature In scarlatina, serious cases of bilious fever, and in cutaneous affections of every description.

As I write, the bilious countenance of a culprit is peeping through the iron grates of a window, who, may be, is atoning for having invaded a henroost or bagged an unsuspecting pig.

It was as gaudy as the other inns, yellow trimmed in bright red and bilious, eye-wrenching green, though here the paint was cracked and peeling.

An unbiased witness might have reflected on now much the ensign looked like a vastly younger version of his boss, but if that had been suggested to Anderson he would have felt a bit bilious.

We can give you a kettle to brew the most marvelous sleeping potions, or one you can sprinkle on daffodils to take away that bilious yellow.

Should you see a yellow bilious creature with bloated fausicles, gills crusted with gangue, an impacted clote, who is thereby at fault?

The catheter bag which dangled below the chair on a chrome coathook was filling with an oily bilious liquid.