choleric
/ˈkɒlərɪk
/adjective
1Bad-tempered or irritable: he was a choleric, self-important little man...
- Even Maureen, who generally treats her choleric partner with girlish forbearance, at one point asks: ‘Why do you always shout like that, Rolf?’
- While Ralph was the choleric loser, Ed was the lucky buffoon.
- The negative side came about largely through his personality which is described as ‘occasionally choleric, quarrelsome, and given to invectives.’
Synonyms
bad-tempered, irascible, irritable, grumpy, grouchy, crotchety, tetchy, testy, crusty, cantankerous, curmudgeonly, ill-tempered, ill-natured, ill-humoured, peevish, cross, fractious, disagreeable, pettish, crabbed, crabby, waspish, prickly, peppery, touchy, scratchy, splenetic, shrewish, short-tempered, hot-tempered, quick-tempered, dyspeptic, bilious, liverish, cross-grained;
argumentative, quarrelsome, uncooperative, contrary, perverse, difficult, awkward
informal snappish, snappy, chippy, short-fused
British informal shirty, stroppy, narky, ratty, eggy, like a bear with a sore head
North American informal cranky, ornery, peckish, soreheaded
Australian/New Zealand informal snaky
informal, dated waxy, miffy
1.1(In medieval medicine) having choler as the predominant bodily humour: a choleric disposition...
- ‘Adding fuel to the fire’ is Culpeper's way of saying that the herb strengthens the choleric humour associated with fever.
- Imbalance of the humours resulted in various temperaments, thus the dominance of black bile causes melancholy; blood, sanguine temperament; phlegm, a phlegmatic temperament; or yellow bile, a choleric temperament.
- Rather, he is choleric in temperament: he is passionate, intemperate, and prone to rashness and anger.
Derivatives
cholerically
- Beyond saying that the book is nicely produced and offers some opinions that will have some typographers nodding appreciatively but others spluttering cholerically, I am not expert enough to venture an opinion.
- Once cholerically opposed by classical financiers, he can now, as Baron Keynes, boost his theories in the House of Lords.
- To use the power of the majority to cholerically abase and degrade such dissenters, however mistaken they may seem to be, will ultimately be counterproductive.
Origin
Middle English (in the sense 'bilious'): from Old French cholerique, via Latin from Greek kholerikos, from kholera (see choler).