Choleric

Part of speech: adjective

Pronunciation: /ˈkɒləɹɪk/

Definitions

1. Having a temperament characterized by quickness to anger and irritability
2. Showing a disposition marked by frequent impatience and a fiery temper
3. Displaying a natural tendency to become upset or annoyed rapidly

Etymology: Ancient Greeks believed the body ran on four fluids, or humours, and an excess of yellow bile made a person irritable. The Greek word "kholera" was the name of that bile, and "kholerikos" described someone ruled by it. The Greeks did not use it for the disease: cholera, the illness with violent vomiting and diarrhoea, was named later, and the disease came to be called by the same word because its symptoms looked like an overflow of bile. The Greek word passed into Latin as "cholericus" and then into Old French as "colerique," and English borrowed it in Middle English as "colerik," the sense being someone dominated by choler, the humoral bile. Its meaning as an adjective of temperament was therefore medical from the start, and the temper it describes is the bodily excess the theory once assumed. Because the English word and the disease name share a root, "choleric" is sometimes confused with the modern sense of cholera. The two are only related through the same Greek word for bile, and a choleric person has no connection to the disease beyond that shared origin.

Synonyms: irritable, quick-tempered, angry, testy, cranky

Antonyms: calm, composed, placid, serene, tranquil