black bile

American  

noun

1. one of the four elemental bodily humors of medieval physiology, regarded as causing gloominess.

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black bile British  

noun

1. archaic one of the four bodily humours; melancholy See humour

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Etymology

Origin of black bile

First recorded in 1790–1800

Example Sentences

Take humoral theory: In the Middle Ages, the body was thought to consist of four liquid components called humors—blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm.

From National Geographic • Nov. 29, 2023

There’s Katharine Minola of “The Taming of the Shrew,” a sharp-tongued woman thought to have too much choler, the melancholic Ophelia of “Hamlet,” whose melancholia demonstrated an excess of black bile, and more.

From Washington Post • Nov. 7, 2022

Throughout Seçkin’s debut, Sibel fixates on the ancient notion of the body’s four humors — blood, phlegm, black bile and choler — as a means of self-diagnosis for a persistent headache.

From New York Times • Jan. 21, 2022

The ancient Greeks, for example, believed mental disorders arose when the digestive tract produced too much black bile.

From Science Magazine • May 7, 2020

Every ten minutes or so her moaning would stop abruptly and she would vomit a foul black bile.

From "An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793" by Jim Murphy