a. [f. SPLEEN sb.] Full of spleen; passionate, irritable, peevishly angry:
a. Of persons (or animals).
1588. Shaks., Tit. A., II. iii. 191. Now will I … let my spleenefull Sonnes this Trull defloure.
1631. Heywood, Eng. Elizab. (1641), 90. Thus she remained a sorrowful and dejected prisoner, in the hands of spleenfull and potent adversaries.
1687. Dryden, Hind & P., III. 1196. The spleenful Pigeons never could create A Prince more proper to revenge their hate.
1795. Wolcot (P. Pindar), Pindariana, Wks. 1812, IV. 225. ’Twas thus I spleenful cried.
1818. Keats, Endym., IV. 256. About the wilds they hunt with spear and horn, On spleenful unicorn.
1859. Tennyson, Marriage of Geraint, 293. Then rode Geraint, a little spleenful yet, Across the bridge.
b. Of actions, feelings, etc.
1593. Shaks., 2 Hen. VI., III. ii. 128. My selfe haue calm’d their spleenfull mutinie, Vntill they heare the order of his death.
1616. R. C., Times’ Whistle (1871), 97. These, these they be, on which I doe engage My vexed Muse to wreck her spleenfull rage.
a. 1645. Heywood, Fortune by Land & Sea, I. i. You speak out of some spleenful rashness, And no deliberate malice.
1718. Pope, Iliad, XV. 111. Smiles on her Lips a spleenful Joy exprest.
1827. Hood, Mids. Fairies, lxxii. With more spleenful speeches and some tears.
1893. Temple Bar, XCVII. 61. The spleenful emphasis with which the Squire puffed out the last word.
Hence Spleenfully adv., in a spleenful manner.
1882. in Imperial Dict.
