spleen
verbEtymology From Middle English splene, splen, from Anglo-Norman espleen and Old French esplein, esplen, from Latin splēn (“milt”), from Ancient Greek σπλήν (splḗn, “the spleen”). Doublet of lien. Partially displaced the native English term milt.
1
Obsolete To dislike.
- T. Wentworth ſpleen'd the Bishop1693, John Hacket, Scrinia Reserata:
2
To annoy or irritate.
- 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:
3
Ambitransitive To complain; to rail; to vent one's spleen.
- 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:
2 more examples
- 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:
4
To remove the spleen, or, by extension, to gore.
- 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:
1 more example
- "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:
5
To excise or remove.
- 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:
1 more example
- 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: