adjective
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bad-tempered
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bilious or causing biliousness
Usage
What does choleric mean? Choleric means easily angered or generally bad-tempered.People described as choleric are grouchy all the time and prone to getting into arguments, often for very little reason.The word choleric comes from the medieval notion that people’s personalities are based on the balance of four different types of elemental fluids in their body, called humors. A choleric person was thought to be generally irritable due to the amount of yellow bile, or choler, in their body.Example: She was the kind of choleric person who would get into a fight over anything and everything.
Other Word Forms
- cholerically adverb
- cholericly adverb
- cholericness noun
- noncholeric adjective
- uncholeric adjective
Etymology
Origin of choleric
1300–50; Middle English colerik < Medieval Latin colericus bilious, Latin cholericus < Greek cholerikós. See cholera, -ic
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Goodell’s imposition of “discipline” — an infantilizing word for adult workplace conduct — has veered between politically calculating and choleric.
From Washington Post • Aug. 2, 2022
His leadership style may be choleric, but that is not what caused him to fulfill his horrific fate.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 26, 2020
Her father, Giuseppe, a loud, choleric Triestine, always took a cold shower in the morning:
From The New Yorker • Jul. 22, 2019
Despite choleric issues on the floor, perhaps the best news in the House is that neither Maloney nor Pingree deserted the chair.
From Fox News • Jul. 17, 2019
The knights of the Round Table were sent out as a measure against Fort Mayne, and the choleric barons who lived by Fort Mayne took the cudgels with the ferocity of despair.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.