Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Same as atrabilarian.
Wiktionary
- adj. Characterized by melancholy or gloom.
Etymologies
- From Latin ātra bīlis ("black bile"). (Wiktionary)
Examples
“The doctor seemed of the middle age and middle stature, active and alert, with an atrabilarious aspect, and a mixture of rage and disdain expressed in his countenance.”
“England almost as poor as I had left it, and with an atrabilarious visage which took a two-months 'course of Cheltenham water to scour into anything like a decent colour.”
“I find that in this atrabilarious effusion you have treated ourselves very scurvily.”
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 330, April 1843
“But Mr. Roebuck, in an atrabilarious rage, dashed into an extempore assault on his quondam brothers across the Atlantic, and proceeded, in his summary and execrating manner, to put them out of the pale of civilised humanity.”
“Regnard, the author of the last French comedy after Moliere, was atrabilarious, and Moliere himself saturnine.”
“This gentleman was naturally of an atrabilarious temperament, and much troubled with those phantoms of indigestion which are commonly called”
“French comedy after Molière, was atrabilarious, and Molière himself saturnine.”
Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 5 (of 6) With His Letters and Journals
“That was the king's secret, Master Heriot," said Sir Mungo, throwing himself into a chair with an air of atrabilarious importance; "the other was a well-meaning hint to yourself, as the girl's friend.”
“My aunt was neither rich, nor handsome, nor young; being, according to the rector's account, on the debtor side of his books, of an adust complection, atrabilarious in look and temper, thirty-four, and two years older than Mr. Elford.”
“The doctrine of another life, in presenting to mortals an ideal happiness, will render them enthusiasts; in overwhelming them with fears, it will make useless beings; generate cowards; form atrabilarious or furious men; who will lose sight of their present abode, to occupy themselves with the pictured regions of a world to come, with those dreadful evils which they must fear after their death.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘atrabilarious’.
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Wordie/Wordnik Curio Cabinet
Oddments culled from my "main" lists that belong in a display cabinet of their own, plus sundry other curiosities. :-)
zeugma, ziggurat, xiphoid, xeric, whizgigging, whangdoodle, viviparous, vivific, vinolent, verjuice, vellicate, velleity and 1193 more...
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Oofy
States of being
seeress, honey bucket, donkeyman, poopyhead, halfwit, vixenish, galoot, hoity toity, shitkicker, miserabilist, wanker, clueless and 261 more...
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Peacock's Plumage
Cribbed from a collection of unusual words employed by Thomas Love Peacock.
accinge, adhibit, adoperation, agrestic, antiperistatical, antithalian, appetency, assation, atrabilarious, autochthonous, compotatory, conglobated and 40 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for atrabilarious.

yarb "Nightmare Abbey, a venerable family-mansion, in a highly picturesque state of semi-dilapidation, pleasantly situated on a strip of dry land between the sea and the fens, at the verge of the county of Lincoln, had the honour to be the seat of Christopher Glowry, Esquire. This gentleman was naturally of an atrabilarious temperament, and much troubled with those phantoms of indigestion which are commonly called blue devils.
- Thomas Love Peacock, Nightmare Abbey
See also atrabilarian. Sep 2, 2008