atrabilious

adj

1. (obsolete)Having an excess of black bile.

   “[I] could see nothing in the evidence which did persuade me to think them other than poor, melancholy, envious, mischievous, ill-disposed, ill-dieted, atrabilious constitutions.”

   “In like manner, all the atrabilious diſeaſes require a regimen, nearly ſimilar, during the interval of the fits, to alter the atrabilious conſtitution which gives riſe to them all; but each requires a ſpecial method of cure, peculiarly adapted to the organ on which the fluxion falls after the fit is formed. Thus, e.g. the piles require a treatment different from a fit of the gout; and ſo of the others.”

2. Characterized by melancholy.

   “But the torch of taste has for the moment fallen into the hands of little men, anæmic and atrabilious, with neither laughter nor pity in their hearts.”

   “Lame, lank, atrabilious Charles Grey Grey [sic] is a 32nd generation Northumberlander.”

3. Ill-natured; malevolent; cantankerous.

   “Fen was in an atrabilious mood. "You've been the devil of a time," he grumbled as Lily Christine III got under way again.”

   “Yet at the same time he detected much of this same cheerfulness throughout the ship and something not very far from apparent unconcern, even in so atrabilious a soul as Killick.”