noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
This entry combines structured lexical data with WordToolSet review checks. Definitions, examples, synonyms, and usage notes may come from different source tables, so the page is designed to show evidence from more than one angle before you rely on "spleen" in a final draft.
If a word has several senses, prefer the sense that matches your sentence's grammar and surrounding context. A correct definition can still be the wrong choice when the sentence needs a different register, emphasis, or level of specificity.
Read the first definition as a starting point, then check the example, synonyms, and part of speech before treating "spleen" as the right word for your sentence.
If your draft is formal, technical, persuasive, or sensitive, compare "spleen" with a nearby alternative so the final choice matches both meaning and reader expectation.
Check whether "spleen" is acting as noun, verb in your sentence. A definition is only useful when the grammar matches the way the word is being used.
Compare it with "lien" and other nearby choices to see whether the sentence needs a softer, stronger, or more familiar word.
Use the example sentence below as an evidence check, then read your own sentence out loud to catch tone or rhythm problems.
Review note: Definition pages are checked for source coverage, sentence evidence, synonym support, and editorial insight before they are treated as approval-ready pages. If the evidence is too thin, the page remains available to users but is kept out of the approval-facing indexed inventory.
Before publishing a sentence with "spleen", ask whether the word helps the reader understand the idea faster. A precise word should reduce confusion, not simply make the sentence look more polished.
When the definition, synonym evidence, and example context point in the same direction, the word is usually a safer choice. When they conflict, revise the sentence or choose a clearer alternative.
"In noble minds some dregs remain, / Not yet purged off, of spleen and sour disdain."
"A thousand spleens bear her a thousand ways. Brief as the lightning in the collied night; That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and Earth"
"Bodies changed to various forms by spleen."
"By virtue, thou enforcest laughter ; thy silly thought, my spleen"
"T. Wentworth ſpleen'd the Bishop"
"There had been a good deal of provocation, we have no doubt, before the republican simplicity, at which Mrs Trollope seems to have been so justly offended, was spleened into speaking of the old woman."
"It was satisfactory to a majority of the bolters, but most of the democrats spleened against him."
"Nor did they only take Townes, kill such as made resistance, and rob houses, with the Licentiousnesse and Avarice of Souldiers, but with barbarous Inhumanity spared no age nor modesty; tyrannizing over the Rest and Monuments of the dead, which they spleened as much as the Living;"
"That will be how we lose what we have gained, The incremental rapture at the core, Spleened of the belly's thick placental wrath, And the seed's roar."
"This fellow is up to something. I can feel it in my spleen."
In vertebrates, including humans, a ductless vascular gland, located in the left upper abdomen near the stomach, which destroys old red blood cells, removes debris from the bloodstream, acts as a reservoir of blood, and produces lymphocytes.
Common synonyms include: lien, irascibility, abdomen, acerbity, acid, acidity.
This fellow is up to something. I can feel it in my spleen.
Pronounced /spliːn/.
From Middle English splene, splen, from Anglo-Norman espleen and Old French esplein, esplen, from Latin splēn (“milt”), from Ancient Greek σπλήν (splḗn, “the spleen”). Doublet of lien. Partially displaced the native English term milt.