a. [f. L. ātra bīlis (see ATRABILE) + -OUS, after L. bīliōsus BILIOUS.] Affected by black bile or ‘choler adust’; melancholy, hypochondriac; splenetic, acrimonious.
1651. Biggs, New Disp., ¶ 220. Some æruginous or atrabilious.
1816. Southey, Ess. Mor. & Pol. (1832), I. 270. It would make the English … fonder of life, less atrabilious.
1849. Lowell, Biglow P., Wks. 1879, 179/1. A hard-faced, atrabilious, earnest-eyed race.
1866. Carlyle, Remin. (1881), II. 206. My atrabilious censures.
