Word of the Day ·

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bilious

UK/ˈbɪl.i.əs/US/ˈbɪl.jəs/

adjective

What it means

  1. Of or pertaining to something containing or consisting of bile.
  2. Resembling bile, especially in color.

    Does money fail?—come to my mint—coin paper, Till gold be at a discount, and ashamed To show his bilious face, go purge himself, In emulation of her vestal whiteness.

    1820, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Oedipus Tyrannus; Or, Swellfoot The Tyrant: A Tragedy in Two Acts
    3 more examples

    His complexion was pale, not of that deadly pallor which is a kind of neutral beauty, but of a bilious, yellow hue; his colorless hair was short and scarcely extended beyond the circle formed by the hat around his head, and his light blue eyes seemed destitute of any expression.

    1845, Alexandre Dumas, chapter 31, in Twenty Years After

    The business-center of Schoenstrom took up one side of one block, facing the railroad. It was a row of one-story shops covered with galvanized iron, or with clapboards painted red and bilious yellow.

    1920, Sinclair Lewis, chapter 3, in Main Street

    A beautiful girl once told me of a recurring nightmare in which she lay in the center of a large dark room and felt her face expand until it filled the whole room, becoming a formless mass while her eyes ran in bilious jelly up the chimney.

    1952, Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man, prologue
  3. medicineSuffering from real or supposed liver disorder, especially excessive secretions of bile.

    Perry tells me that Mr. Cole never touches malt liquor. You would not think it to look at him, but he is bilious—Mr. Cole is very bilious.

    1815, Jane Austen, Emma, volume II, chapter 7

In a sentence

Does money fail?—come to my mint—coin paper, Till gold be at a discount, and ashamed To show his bilious face, go purge himself, In emulation of her vestal whiteness.

1820, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Oedipus Tyrannus; Or, Swellfoot The Tyrant: A Tragedy in Two Acts

Where it comes from

  1. Latinbīliōsus“full of bile”
  2. Frenchbilieux
  3. Englishbilious

From French bilieux, from Latin bīliōsus (“full of bile”), from bīlis (“bile”) + -ōsus (“full of”).

Full entry for bilious →

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