Splenetic

//spləˈnɛtɪk// adj, noun

adj, noun ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A person affected with spleen. archaic
Adjective
  1. 1
    Bad-tempered, irritable, peevish, spiteful, habitually angry.

    "A sect, whose chief devotion lies / In odd perverse antipathies; / […] / More peevish, cross, and splenetick, / Than dog distract, or monkey sick."

  2. 2
    Related to the spleen.

    "I have already described the general protuberance of the abdomen among the children throughout the Messaria and the Carpas districts, all of whom are more or less affected by splenetic diseases."

Adjective
  1. 1
    very irritable wordnet
  2. 2
    of or relating to the spleen wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
acerbacerbateacerbicacidacidicacidulent

Example

More examples

"His splenetic father threatened to spank him if he didn't behave himself."

Etymology

The adjective form of spleen, borrowed from Late Latin spleneticus, from Latin splen. Anger was traditionally believed to originate from the fluids of the spleen.

Related phrases

bad tempered

More for "splenetic"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

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