Also 7 splene. [f. the sb.]
1. † a. trans. To regard with spleen or ill-humor; to have a grudge at. Obs.
a. 1629. Hinde, J. Bruen, li. (1641), 168. Is it then your antipathy against goodnesse … that provokes you to swell against them, and so much to splene and spite them?
1675. J. Smith, Chr. Relig. App., II. 18. A man so vitious as his hatred to Vertue made him spleen Nicæus,… and all good men.
† b. To fill with spleen; to make angry or ill-tempered. Obs.
1689. N. Lee, P’cess Cleves, IV. i. Such Love as mine, and injur’d as I thought, Wou’d spleen the Gaul-less Turtle, wou’d it not?
a. 1734. North, Examen (1740), 326. The author … is manifestly spleened at the force with which they wrote and preached in the controversy.
1801. S. & Ht. Lee, Canterb. T., V. 258. Stanhope, too much spleen’d for conversation, withdrew.
c. intr. To feel spleen or deep anger.
1885. Congregationalist, 1 Jan. (Cent.). It is fairly sickenin’; I spleen at it.
2. trans. To deprive of the spleen.
1727. Pope, etc., Martin. Scriblerus, vi. (1741), 42 (J.). Animals spleened grow extremely salacious.
