Saturnic

//səˈtɝnɪk// adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 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. 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. 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. 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.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.