Definition of "spleen"

In noble minds some dregs remain, / Not yet purged off, of spleen and sour disdain.

1709, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Criticism, London: […] W. Lewis […], published 1711

Too many, however, who might take an honourable stand, fear the petty spleen of the plantocracy; preferring the most disgusting adulation, to the blessing of him ready to perish.

1843, “A Voice from Trinidad”, in Colonial Magazine and Commercial-maritime Journal, page 465

The name I like best, however, I heard uttered by the Eldest Son of the House of Chou, who in a moment of spleen referred to his colleague of the House of Liang as hsiao chu-tan, the Little Pig’s Egg.

1929, Owen Lattimore, “The Black Gobi”, in The Desert Road To Turkestan‎, Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, page 227

A thousand spleens bear her a thousand ways.Brief as the lightning in the collied night; That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and EarthThe spelling has been modernized.

1593, 1896

Bodies changed to various forms by spleen.

1712 May, [Alexander Pope], “The Rape of the Locke. An Heroi-comical Poem.”, in Miscellaneous Poems and Translations. […], London: […] Bernard Lintott […], canto

There is a luxury in self-dispraise: / And inward self-disparagement affords / To meditative spleen a grateful feast.

1814, William Wordsworth, The Excursion

By virtue, thou enforcest laughter ; thy silly thought, my spleen

c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act III, scene ii]

T. Wentworth ſpleen'd the Bishop

1693, John Hacket, Scrinia Reserata

There had been a good deal of provocation, we have no doubt, before the republican simplicity, at which Mrs Trollope seems to have been so justly offended, was spleened into speaking of the old woman.

1832, The Edinburgh Review: Or Critical Journal - Volume 111, page 488

If you want to know why I am always spleening her, it is because I am always elsewhere with friends, and disseminating so much currency, and performing so many things that can spleen a mother.

2013, Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated

It was satisfactory to a majority of the bolters, but most of the democrats spleened against him.

1883, Frank Abial Flower, Life of Matthew Hale Carpenter, page 292

He never counseled litigation for the sake of litigation, and no client ever complained of his loyalty, He hated sham and pretense, and openly spleened at the empty mouthing oracle of the street corner, the society, or the church.

1904, Philip Loring Spooner, Abram Daniel Smith, Wisconsin Reports, page xliv

O Captain, my Captain, I shan't migrain that fight —A teritable Dunga Minh art thou, A phantom of loneflight; And though I've swaggered you and spleened you, By the living bilge that gleaned you — You're a better man than I am, Dunga Minh!

1964, Christine Gay, Pegasus, page 39

When he phoned the old man in Idaho, Herman Zaunbrecher spleened “no dothead fucking quack's gonna treat my boy like a lab rat” and ordered the surgeon to put Randall on the next flight to Boise.

2021, John Ritter, Fatal Conceit

Nor did they only take Townes, kill such as made resistance, and rob houses, with the Licentiousnesse and Avarice of Souldiers, but with barbarous Inhumanity spared no age nor modesty; tyrannizing over the Rest and Monuments of the dead, which they spleened as much as the Living;

1667, Famianus Strada, The History of the Low-Countrey Warres, page 75

I grant a good deal to Grecian pride of prose, and Roman fund of poesy, when spleened and gored to shame, defeat, and loss of prestige, on the battle-field by mere "barbaric" ( ? ) troops of Cimbric Hyperborean Celts.

1866, John Jones Thomas, Britannia Antiquissima, page 79

"That is true," quoth Albertu, “but pray consider on the other side that animals spleened grow extremely salacious, an experiment well known in dogs."

1892, George Atherton Aitken, George A. Aitken, John Arbuthnot, The Life and Works of John Arbuthnot, M.D, page 328

That will be how we lose what we have gained, The incremental rapture at the core, Spleened of the belly's thick placental wrath, And the seed's roar.

1996, William Everson, Clif Ross, William Everson: The Light the Shadow Casts, page 105

Picking up where I left off...broken down, knowing they'd pick through my bones like vultures for what marrow they hadn't already spleened from me.

2006, Chris Eann, Lord Buddha: Book of Omens, page 45

There is even a subtle reference to sexuality in the poem, but it is formulated in such a manner that it is spleened of all vulgarity.

2019, V. A. February, Mind Your Colour