Choler

sb.¹ Forms: 4 colre, colrye, (coloure), 4–6 coler(e, 5 collor, 6 coller, -ar, cholere, -ier, -ar, color, (colour), 6–7 choller, cholor, 6– choler. [ME. colre, and colere, coler, a. OF. colre and colère, inherited form, and later learned adaptation of L. cholera (in med.L. often colera), a. Gr. χολέρα, name of a disease, CHOLERA (sense 2), and including perhaps other bilious disorders (mod.L. dicts. say ‘jaundice’). App. (as stated by Celsus A.D. 50) f. χολή bile, though the formation is obscure and the derivation disputed; another sense of χολέρα was rain-pipe, gutter. With Celsus and Pliny, L. cholera retained the same sense as in Gr.; but in 3rd and 4th c. it was used by Lampridius and Jerome in the sense of Gr. χολή ‘bile,’ also ‘bitter anger,’ and became the ordinary name of one of the ‘four humours’ of the physicians (sanguis, cholera, melancolia, phlegma), as in Isidore. In this sense alone the word survived in Romanic, It. collera, Pr. colera, colra, OF. colre, colle, cole, bile, anger. The last has been superseded in Fr. by colère, a re-adaptation of the L. word, of learned origin. Both Fr. types appear in late ME., where also the word appears to have been sometimes confused with colour, esp. in its association with red. In the 16th c. the spelling was refashioned after the original Latin.]

  1.  Bile.

  a.  as one of the ‘four humours’ of early physiology, supposed to cause irascibility of temper.

c. 1386.  Chaucer, Nun’s Pr. T., 108. Certes this dreem Cometh of greet superfluytee Of youre rede Colera pardee [so 4 MSS; 1 colere, 1 colre, 1 coloure].

1393.  Gower, Conf., III. 99. The complexion … Which in a man is coler hote, It maketh a man ben enginous And swifte of fote and eke irous.

1530.  Palsgr., Colour, the complexion in a man, colere, cole.

1570.  Levins, Manip., 71. Choler, humor, chelera.

1656.  H. More, Antid. Ath., II. x. (1712), 69. Mere Choler engages the Fancy to dream of firing of Guns.

1662.  Fuller, Worthies, Sussex. The Tetrarch Humour of Choler.

a. 1834.  Coleridge, Shaks. Notes (1875), 117. The four humours, choler, melancholy, phlegm, and the sanguine portion.

  b.  In the modern physiological sense.

  (This only gradually disengaged itself from the prec.)

1533.  Elyot, Cast. Helthe (1541), 9 a. Naturall coler is the fome of bloud, the color wherof is redde and clere, or more lyke to an orenge colour.

1576.  Baker, Jewell of Health, 186 a. Halfe a pynt of greene choller.

1682.  T. Gibson, Anat., 23. Choler is separated by the Liver.

1715.  Petiver, in Phil. Trans., XXIX. 230. The Seed of this Plant evacuates yellow Choler.

1721–1800.  Bailey, Choler, Bile … contained in the Gall Bladder.

1755–.  Johnson, Choler, the Bile.

  fig.  1610.  Histrio-m., II. 16. Swarthy India … Disgorging golden choller to the waves.

  c.  Bile viewed as a malady or disease; bilious disorder, biliousness.

c. 1386.  Chaucer, Nun’s Pr. T., 126. I conseille yow … That bothe of Colere [1 MS. colre, 1 colour, 2 coloure] and of Malencolye Ye purge yow.

1540.  J. Heywood, Four P’s, in Hazl., Dodsley, I. 365. It purgeth you clean from the Choler.

1578.  Lyte, Dodoens, I. lvii. 84. Good against the dissease called choler or melancholy.

1593.  Shaks., Rich. II., I. i. 153. Let’s purge this choller without letting blood.

1624.  Harington, Diet & Sleep, in Babees Bk. (1868), 257. To those that are subiect to choller, it is lawfull to feede often.

1683.  Tryon, Way to Health, 83. Butter … ought not to be eaten in too great quantity, for then it generates Choler.

  2.  Anger, heat of temper, wrath; choleric disposition, irascibility. Cf. bile, gall, spleen.

1530.  Palsgr., 207/1. Collar angre, chavlde cole.

1560.  Throckmorton, in Tytler, Hist. Scot. (1864), III. 134/2. The queen uttered some choler and stomach against them.

1587.  Harrison, England, II. i. (1877), I. 5. The peeres departed in choler from the Court.

1599.  Shaks., Hen. V., IV. vii. 188. I doe know Fluellen valiant, And toucht with Choler, hot as Gunpowder.

1603.  Knolles, Hist. Turks (1621), 48. He must in great choller breake out against the poore empresse.

a. 1674.  Clarendon, Hist. Reb. (1704), III. x. 44. Hollis, in choler, pulled him by the Nose.

1754.  Richardson, Grandison (1781), III. xiii. 96. I found my choler rising.

1781.  J. Moore, View Soc. It. (1790), I. xliii. 466. Subject to violent fits of Choler.

1802.  Mar. Edgeworth, Moral T., Good Fr. Governess (1831), 122. The embarrassed manner and stifled choler of Mrs. Grace.

1858.  Carlyle, Fredk. Gt. (1865), I. III. xiv. 225. A strong flame of choler burnt in all these Hohenzollerns.

  † 3.  In Bible versions probably = cholera, diarrhœa. [Vulg. cholera, LXX. χολέρα.]

1382.  Wyclif, Ecclus. xxxvii. 33. Gredynesse shall neȝhen vnto colre [1388 colrye].

1611.  Bible, Ibid. 30. Surfetting will turne into choler. Ibid. xxxi. 20. The paine of watching and choller, and pangs of the bellie are with an vnsatiable man.

  b.  The distemper in swine.

1741.  Compl. Fam.-Piece, III. 502. The Distemper, called the Choler in Swine, shews itself by the Hog’s losing its Flesh.

[1887.  Times, Feb. Swine-fever:—in America it was termed hog-Cholera.]

  4.  Choler adust, also Black choler = black bile, atrabile, melancholy. A supposed thick black and acrid fluid formerly believed to be secreted by the renal glands, and to be the cause of melancholy; another of the four humours of ancient physicians: see MELANCHOLY. (By the end of the 16th c., it was recognized as merely a morbid condition of Bile: so Holland, Bacon.)

1398.  Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., IV. xi. (1495), 96. This blacke colera is enmye of kynde. Ibid. (Berthelet 1535). Melancoly—Physiciens cal it colera nigra, coler black.

1578.  Lyte, Dodoens, 377. The leaves of Sena … do scoure away fleme and choler, especially blacke choler, and Melancholie.

1601.  Holland, Pliny, II. Table, Choler black and adust, what purgeth downward.

1607–12.  Bacon, Ess., Ambition (Arb.), 222. Ambition is like Choler … if it be stopped, and cannott have his way, it becometh Adust, and thereby maligne and venemous.

1635.  N. Carpenter, Geog. Del., II. x. 181. That humour in man, which we call Melancholy and choler-adust.

1646.  Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., VI. xii. 335. Fevers and hot distempers from choler adust.

a. 1700.  Dryden, Cock & Fox, 156. Choler adust congeals our blood with fear.

1721–1800.  Bailey, Atra bilis, black Choler, Melancholy.

  5.  Comb., as † choler-passage, bile duct.

1668.  Culpepper & Cole, Barthol. Anat., Introd. The Gall-bladder, Choler-passage, and Piss-bladder, serve the Liver.

  † B.  as adj. = Choleric. [F. colère adj.] Obs.

1662.  R. Mathew, Unl. Alch., xxiv. 16. The several Complexions, as Sanguine, Choller, Melancholly, Flegmatick.

  Choler, obs. f. COLLAR.