spleen

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments  · 
For ages runners have believed that the spleen was a hindrance to their vocation, and that its reduction was followed by greater agility on the course.

View all »
Definitions (23)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (6)

  1. noun A large, highly vascular lymphoid organ, lying in the human body to the left of the stomach below the diaphragm, serving to store blood, disintegrate old blood cells, filter foreign substances from the blood, and produce lymphocytes.
  2. noun A homologous organ or tissue in other vertebrates.
  3. noun Obsolete This organ conceived as the seat of emotions or passions.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (13)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (2)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples

 

Tags

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Stats

Spleen has been looked up 292 times, favorited once, listed 46 times, and commented on 0 times.

On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Add a related word »
Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

pancreas ·  kidney ·  intestine ·  colon ·  bladder ·  marrow ·  gland ·  bowel ·  lung ·  animosity ·  malevolence ·  petulance
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English splen, from Old French esplen, from Latin splēn, from Greek.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. from Middle English splene, splen, from Old French esplen, esplein, esplain, esplien, esplene = Italian splene, from Latin splen, from Greek σπλήν = Latin lien (for orig. *splien) = Sanskrit plihan (for orig. *splihan), the spleen.
  2. from spleen, n.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »

/splin/
by American Heritage

Charts

frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

You can expect to see this word about twice a month.

Recent Lookups

slithy · quoth · upmarket · eagerness · diminution

Recent Favorites

TelePalmter · Espoo · stick-to-it-iveness · supine · doxastic

Recent Pronunciations

milosrdenstvi · lichen-covered · futon · sagacity · monoragngocious