Word Workout : Building a Muscular Vocabulary in 10 Easy Steps (9781250020895) by Elster Charles Harrington

Author:Elster, Charles Harrington
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781250020895
Publisher: Macmillan

Word 50: SPLENETIC (spluh-NET-ik)

Irritable, ill-tempered; spiteful and morose; given to angry and impatient fits.

You can imagine how many synonyms there are for a word that means irritable or ill-tempered. Here are some of them: cross; cranky; peevish; churlish (word 9 of Level 6); waspish; snappish; petulant (PECH-uh-lint); cantankerous (kan-TANG-kur-us); choleric (KAH-luh-rik, literally affected with the disease cholera); grouchy; sullen; sulky; crabbed (KRAB-id); surly; ill-humored; testy; crusty; captious; irascible (i-RAS-i-bul); curmudgeonly (kur-MUHJ-in-lee); dyspeptic (dis-PEP-tik, word 11 of Level 7); acrimonious (AK-ri-MOH-nee-us); querulous (KWER-uh-lus); and atrabilious (A-truh-BIL-ee-us, word 24 of Level 8).

Splenetic comes from the Greek and Latin words for the spleen, and originally meant of, pertaining to, or affecting the spleen, the organ that destroys old red blood cells, filters and stores blood, and produces lymphocytes (LIM-fuh-syts), a type of white blood cell essential to the body’s immune system. Because the ancients considered the spleen the seat of various emotions, splenetic came to be used of people who had fits of bad temper, angry impatience, or ill will, or who had a melancholy, morose, ill-humored disposition. In 1780 the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham wrote of “the fear of future punishment at the hands of a splenetic and revengeful Deity.” And in 1841, in his novel Barnaby Rudge, Charles Dickens wrote that “neighbours who had got up splenetic that morning, felt good-humour stealing on them as they heard” the “pleasant music,” the “magical tink, tink, tink,” of the locksmith.

That is how we continue to use splenetic today: to mean gloomy, irritable, and spiteful, given to fits of anger and impatience. The word is commonly applied to people, but it may apply as well to what people say or write, as the splenetic utterances of a demagogue [word 12 of Level 4] with a million followers on Twitter. It may also apply to anything that seems to manifest spiteful or morose irritability: “Stock markets … turned downright splenetic in exchanges from Frankfurt to New York” (The Deal Pipeline).

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