Saturnic
adj ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 containing lead or suffering from lead poisoning (saturnia)
"As regards alcohol, eight of the men, including one subject of gout and one of lead-poisoning, confined their potations to two pints of beer or less daily. Of one more, a painter, gouty and saturnic, the amount was not ascertained."
- 2 saturnine; tending to a gloomy, melancholy, or bitter disposition
"Don Fernan presented that union of fiery passion and saturnic manners not unusual among Spaniards."
- 3 of or relating to the planet Saturn
"Under these conditions the Moon could only collide with satellites in orbits external to the Moon itself since it is well-known that any sizable satellite inside the Roche limit would rapidly disintegrate into some kind of saturnic ring."
- 4 Saturnalian: riotously merry; dissolute
"A remarkable example of such saturnic mime is provided by Plato’s Symposium. Its beginning is saturnalia, its ending—komos; its whole setting is not everyday-realistic but saturnic, Bacchic, and the roots of “feast” philosophy (wine and the theme of eros) lie in Bacchism-saturnism."
Example
More examples"As regards alcohol, eight of the men, including one subject of gout and one of lead-poisoning, confined their potations to two pints of beer or less daily. Of one more, a painter, gouty and saturnic, the amount was not ascertained."
Etymology
From Saturn + -ic.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.