BILIOUS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does bilious mean? 

• BILIOUS (adjective)
  The adjective BILIOUS has 3 senses:

1. relating to or containing bile

2. suffering from or suggesting a liver disorder or gastric distress

3. irritable as if suffering from indigestion

  Familiarity information: BILIOUS used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BILIOUS (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Relating to or containing bile

Classified under:

Relational adjectives (pertainyms)

Synonyms:

biliary; bilious

Pertainym:

bile (a digestive juice secreted by the liver and stored in the gallbladder; aids in the digestion of fats)

Derivation:

bile (a digestive juice secreted by the liver and stored in the gallbladder; aids in the digestion of fats)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Suffering from or suggesting a liver disorder or gastric distress

Synonyms:

bilious; liverish; livery

Similar:

ill; sick (affected by an impairment of normal physical or mental function)

Derivation:

biliousness (gastric distress caused by a disorder of the liver or gall bladder)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Irritable as if suffering from indigestion

Synonyms:

atrabilious; bilious; dyspeptic; liverish

Similar:

ill-natured (having an irritable and unpleasant disposition)

Derivation:

biliousness (gastric distress caused by a disorder of the liver or gall bladder)

 Context examples 

He looked suspiciously at us now out of yellow-shot, bilious eyes, and, without speaking or rising, he waved towards two chairs.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“My dear,” said my aunt, after taking a spoonful of it; “it's a great deal better than wine. Not half so bilious.”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

He gorged himself habitually at table, which made him bilious, and gave him a dim and bleared eye and flabby cheeks.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

You would not think it to look at him, but he is bilious—Mr. Cole is very bilious.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

The malady itself, one from which she had often suffered, a bilious fever—its cause therefore constitutional.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Accordingly we looked in at a baker's window, and after I had made a series of proposals to buy everything that was bilious in the shop, and he had rejected them one by one, we decided in favour of a nice little loaf of brown bread, which cost me threepence.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I think those day visions were not dark: there was a pleasurable illumination in your eye occasionally, a soft excitement in your aspect, which told of no bitter, bilious, hypochondriac brooding: your look revealed rather the sweet musings of youth when its spirit follows on willing wings the flight of Hope up and on to an ideal heaven.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Poor Perry is bilious, and he has not time to take care of himself—he tells me he has not time to take care of himself—which is very sad—but he is always wanted all round the country.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)