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Choleric   Listen
adjective
Choleric  adj.  
1.
Abounding with, or producing choler, or bile.
2.
Easily irritated; irascible; inclined to anger.
3.
Angry; indicating anger; excited by anger. "Choleric speech."
Choleric temperament, the bilious temperament.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Choleric" Quotes from Famous Books



... without, as when affected by the sensible object: and from within, for we see that the senses are changed when the spirits and humors are disturbed; as for example, a sick man's tongue, charged with choleric humor, tastes everything as bitter, and the like with the other senses. Now an angel, by his natural power, can work a change in the senses both ways. For an angel can offer the senses a sensible object from without, formed by nature or by the angel himself, as when he assumes a body, as we have ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... this, that the injury he had received from Cassius, had long been brooding in his mind; and that a melancholy man, upon consideration of an affront, especially from a friend, would be more eager in his passion, than he who had given it, though naturally more choleric. Euripides, whom I have followed, has raised the quarrel betwixt two brothers, who were friends. The foundation of the scene was this: The Grecians were wind-bound at the port of Aulis, and the oracle had said, that they could not sail, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... despatches till the next morning, for the best of all possible reasons, that Vanslyperken did not take them on shore. He had a long story to tell, and he thought it prudent not to disturb the admiral after dinner, as great men are apt to be very choleric during the ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat

... and Lope Conchillos will be seen to be fair exponents of the bureaucratic type of opponents to the reforms Las Casas advocated. The Bishop in particular appears in an unsympathetic light throughout his long administration of American affairs. Of choleric temper, his manners were aggressive and authoritative, and he used his high position to advance his private interests. He was a disciplinarian, a bureaucrat averse to novelties and hostile to enthusiasms. He anticipated ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt

... of these fainted—no heart of oak was he, when our ancient Briton, the commandant, Colonel Jones, again presented himself, vif et emporte. The spectators exclaimed—"que cela venoit de la trop rapide circulation de son sang." N'importe: the choleric Colonel, blustering, restored us to comparative tranquillity, as he brandished on high his sword, giving it an after-sweeping movement, as if to moissonner nos tetes; my valiant compatriot extended on the pavement ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various

... Already the Taeehs and Happahs were beginning to wonder at the delay, and rumors spread about the village that the whites were really the cowards for which the Typees took them. One man, a chief among the Happahs, was rash enough to call Porter a coward to his face; whereat the choleric captain seized a gun, and, rushing for the offender, soon brought him to his knees, the muzzle of the weapon against his head, begging for mercy. That man was ever after Porter's most able ally among ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... and 'twas the unseemly kilt that was the better part; for I have met a blustering red-faced Scot as thou sayest; and he was boisterous and surly, giving vent to a choleric temper by coarse oaths; and 'twas his plaid denoted a gentleman of high rank withal. The long hair that swept his shoulders was as florid as his face, as was also his flowing whiskers and mustachio, the latter being bitten short and forming a bristling fringe ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne

... Meanwhile the choleric Captain strode wrathful away to the council, Found it already assembled, impatiently waiting his coming; Men in the middle of life, austere and grave in deportment, Only one of them old, the hill that was nearest to heaven, Covered with snow, but erect, the excellent ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... return, O Pehliva, for I bethink me how Kai Kaous is a man hard and choleric, and the fear of Sohrab weigheth upon his heart, and his soul burneth with impatience, and he hath lost sleep, and hath hunger and thirst on this account. And he will be wroth against us if we delay yet longer ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... will speak. Must I give way and room to your rash choler? Shall I be frighted when a madman stares? Cas O ye gods! ye gods! Must I endure all this? Bru. All this? ay, more! Fret till your proud heart break; Go, show your slaves how choleric you are, And make your bondmen tremble! Must I budge? Must I observe you? Must I stand and crouch Under your testy humor? By the gods, You shall digest the venom of your spleen, Though it do split you; for, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... that he may be able to tell, how the life agreeth with the fame. For quarrels, they are with care and discretion to be avoided. They are commonly for mistresses, healths, place, and words. And let a man beware, how he keepeth company with choleric and quarrelsome persons; for they will engage him into their own quarrels. When a traveller returneth home, let him not leave the countries, where he hath travelled, altogether behind him; but maintain a correspondence by letters, with those of his acquaintance, which are of most worth. ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon

... that follows breeding of teeth comes from choleric humours, inflamed by watching, pain and heat. And the longer teeth are breeding, the more dangerous it is; so that many in the breeding of them, die of ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous

... into the town, which at that time was still a small place, whom should we meet but Sir Alexander Somers, who, hearing that wagons were coming from Zululand, had ridden out in the hope of obtaining news of us. It seemed that the choleric old gentleman's anxiety concerning his son had so weighed on his mind that at length he made up his mind to proceed to Africa to hunt for him. So there he was. The meeting between the two was ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard

... create novels, though to his everlasting credit wrote two for a particular purpose which he accomplished by injecting the right tone or "color" into tales depicting the inner life on daily newspapers. We of the old Press Club used to grow choleric as we would read stories about alleged newspaper men, but a serene satisfaction fell upon us when Allison's reflections appeared. They were "right!" And while "resting" (definition from the private dictionary of Cornelius McAuliff) from the more or less arduous ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock

... the two, and a flute does what it can, but not what it would. Sometimes, instead of a violone, a hoarse trombone, with a violent cold in the head, snorts out the bass impatiently, gets ludicrously uncontrollable and boastful at times, and is always so choleric, that, instead of waiting for the cadenzas to finish, it bursts in, knocks them over as by a blow on the head, roars away on false intervals, and overwhelms every other voice with its own noisy vociferation. The harmonic arrangements are very odd. Each instrument ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various

... than any of his predecessors. He had, however, a natural keenness of discernment, which he greatly improved by art, and exerted with great address and dexterity, though in very indifferent language: but he was frequently warm and choleric, sometimes cold and insipid, and now and then rather smart and humourous. He did not long support the fatigue, and emulous contention of the Forum; partly, on account of the weakness of his constitution; ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... quantity; for the heat of the sun exhausts all the superfluous moisture which lies in the surface of bodies, ready to generate putrefaction. And this hot constitution, it may be, rendered Alexander so addicted to drinking, and so choleric. His temperance, as to the pleasures of the body, was apparent in him in his very childhood, as he was with much difficulty incited to them, and always used them with great moderation; though in other things he was extremely eager ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... and ane reverend gentleman, residing therein. The worshipful gentleman was his honour the Laird of Knocktarlitie, who was bailie of the lordship under the Duke of Argyle, ane Highland gentleman, tarr'd wi' the same stick," David doubted, "as mony of them, namely, a hasty and choleric temper, and a neglect of the higher things that belong to salvation, and also a gripping unto the things of this world, without muckle distinction of property; but, however, ane gude hospitable gentleman, ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... But kindly take your hand from your revolver, I am not choleric—but accidents may chance. And here's the father, who alone can be the solver Of this twin riddle of the ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte

... wife differ, not only in mental conformation, but in bodily construction. A melancholy man should mate himself with a sprightly woman, and vice versa; for otherwise they will soon grow weary of the monotony of each other's company. By the same rule should the choleric and the patient be united, and the ambitious and the humble; for the opposites of their natures not only produce pleasurable excitement, but each keeps the other in a wholesome check. In the size and form of the parties the same principles hold good. Tall women are ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous

... situation he continued till 1613, when he left it to assume a professorship at Linz. Here he remained some years, and the latter part of his life was spent as astrologer to Wallenstein. Kepler is described as small and meagre of person, and he speaks of himself as "troublesome and choleric in politics and domestic matters." He was twice married, and left a wife ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... health, and therefore we have been able to work well. There is one individual of whom I have not yet spoken—M. Heger, the husband of Madame. He is professor of rhetoric, a man of power as to mind, but very choleric and irritable in temperament. He is very angry with me just at present, because I have written a translation which he chose to stigmatize as 'peu correct.' He did not tell me so, but wrote the word on the margin of my book, and ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell

... man has a temper that you have slighted his suit?" interrupted the matron, peevishly. "Child, child, don't you know that every man that is worth his salt has a warm constitution? Why, the tales and warnings that were brought to me of the general's choleric nature when he was wooing me were enough to fright any woman. And true they were, for once roused, his wrath is terrible. Yet to me he has ever been the kindest ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... of the mandate, made his appearance on deck; and on a repetition of the order from the officer, exhibited unequivocal symptoms of a choleric temper. After letting off a little of his exuberant wrath, he declared with emphasis that he had a RIGHT to wear a pennant, and WOULD wear it in spite of all the officers ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... moral sense of educated men been outraged by common fraud and deceit for any continuance of a regime which had disgraced China for four long years to be humanly possible. Far and wide the word was rapidly passing that Yuan Shih-kai was not the man he had once been: he was in reality feeble and choleric—prematurely old from too much history-making and too many hours spent in the harem. He had indeed become a mere Colossus with feet of clay,—a man who could be hurled to the ground by precisely the same methods ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale

... not go to this extent of fury, but give vent to their spleen in a more cool and calculating manner. Their temper, for being less fiery, is more bitter. They are choleric rather than bellicose. They do not fly to acts but to desires and well-laid plans of revenge. If the desire or deed lead to a violation of justice or charity, to scandal or any notable evil consequence, the sin is clearly mortal; the more so, if this inward brooding be of long duration, as ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton

... court; and, besides bawling, you are smoking, so you are wanting in politeness to the whole company." As he said this, Raskolnikoff felt an inexpressible delight at his maliciousness. The clerk looked up with a smile. The choleric officer was clearly nonplused. ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne

... neighbour I have met since I wrote last. This is Mr. Frankland, of Lafter Hall, who lives some four miles to the south of us. He is an elderly man, red-faced, white-haired, and choleric. His passion is for the British law, and he has spent a large fortune in litigation. He fights for the mere pleasure of fighting and is equally ready to take up either side of a question, so that it is no wonder that he has found it ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle

... remarkably fine stag-horns. One pair of these especially pleased Pirkheimer. The widow, without knowing Pirkheimer's desire for these, sold them for a small sum and thus brought upon herself the anger of her husband's choleric friend, who wrote a most unkind letter concerning her which has been quoted from that day to this to show how Albrecht Durer suffered in his home. The truth seems really to be that Agnes Durer was as sweet-tempered as the average woman, fond of her husband ...
— Great Artists, Vol 1. - Raphael, Rubens, Murillo, and Durer • Jennie Ellis Keysor

... beauties; but in this last, which is expression, the Roman poet is at least equal to the Grecian, as I have said elsewhere; supplying the poverty of his language by his musical ear, and by his diligence. But to return: our two great poets, being so different in their tempers, one choleric and sanguine, the other phlegmatic and melancholic; that which makes them excel in their several ways is that each of them has follow'd his own natural inclination, as well in forming the design ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... with which she did not reproach herself, and I for her an esteem with the justice of which nobody was better acquainted than myself; she frank, absent, heedless; I true, awkward, haughty, impatient and choleric; We exposed ourselves more in deceitful security than we should have done had we been culpable. We both went to the Chevrette; we sometimes met there by appointment. We lived there according to our accustomed manner; walking together ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... Below, a few sounds might be heard,—here, the wail of a child; there, the shrill scold of a woman in that accent above all others adapted to scold,—the Irish. Farther down still, the deep bass oath of the choleric resurrection-man; but above, all was silent. Only one floor intervened between Grabman's apartment and the ladder that led to Beck's loft. And the inmates of that room gave no sound of life. Grabman took courage, and shuffling off his shoes, ascended the stairs; he passed the closed door of the ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... drawing-room when he entered it was enough to make certain that his principal guest was not there, at any rate. He saw all the other pillars of the little party; he saw Lord Galloway, the English Ambassador—a choleric old man with a russet face like an apple, wearing the blue ribbon of the Garter. He saw Lady Galloway, slim and threadlike, with silver hair and a face sensitive and superior. He saw her daughter, Lady Margaret Graham, a pale and pretty girl with an elfish ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... comfort with which he noted the King's prudence"; but he can scarcely have viewed Henry's growing interference without some secret misgivings. For he was developing not only Wolsey's skill and lack of scruple in politics, but also a choleric and impatient temper akin to the Cardinal's own. In 1514 Carroz had complained of Henry's offensive behaviour, and had urged that it would become impossible to control him, if the "young colt" were not bridled. In the following year Henry treated a French envoy with scant civility, and flatly ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... the rattlesnakes. "But why were you about to declare war against me—me, who alone possess, under the Wahconda, the means of conducting you in safety to the end of your journey? You are too brave and valiant, too hasty and choleric, Lenapes; it will be good for you to lose some of your ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... slashed to pieces in the National Observer, his contemporaries imagined that Henley did nothing anywhere at any time save thunder and denounce and condemn and slash to pieces and that he was altogether a fierce, choleric, intolerant, impossible sort of a person. The chances are few now realize that Henley was enough of an influence in his generation for it to have mattered to anybody what manner of man he was. A glimpse of him remains here and there. Stevenson has left the description of his personality, ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... inquisitorial and peremptory. And as his temperament was choleric there were fellows who were actually afraid of him. He was redoubtable, not in virtue of his office, but because of his unwarrantable assumptions. I had never had anything to ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad

... first to arrive. With him was a choleric-looking old gentleman, at sight of whom Tommy flushed up to the roots of his hair. ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie

... slow to believe that Roland could dislike his son, she could yet readily believe that he was harsh and choleric, with a soldier's high notions of discipline; the young man's story moved her, his determination pleased her own high spirit. Always with a touch of romance in her, and always sympathizing with each desire of ambition, she entered into Vivian's aspirations with an alacrity that ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... "The sanguine-choleric temperament of Friedrich," says this Doctor, "drove him, in his youth, to sensual enjoyments and wild amusements of different kinds; in his middle age, to fiery enterprises; and in his old years to decisions and actions of a rigorous and vehement nature; yet so that the primary ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure, until he knows whether the writer of it be a black[1] or a fair man, of a mild or choleric[2] disposition, married or a bachelor, with other particulars of the like nature, that conduce very much to the right understanding of an author. To gratify this curiosity, which is so natural to a reader, I design this paper and my next as prefatory discourses to my following writings, ...
— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others

... absentee landlord,—was a shrewd, hard-bitten, choleric old fellow, of the shape, colour, and consistence of a red brick; one of those English types which Mr. Emerson has so well hit off in his rather ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... Mr. Blades, a red-haired, choleric man. 'How under the sun did she find out these were not fresh? They look all right, and ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore

... the best) of a temper so choleric as Mr. Wesley's is that by constant daily expenditure on trifles it fatigues itself, and is apt to betray its possessor by an unexpected lassitude when a really serious occasion calls. A temper thoroughly cruel (which his was not) steadily increases its appetite: but a temper less than cruel, ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... less the same characteristic somatic and psychic traits and trends. Tuberculosis, for instance, was noted for its frequency in long-skeletoned, thin persons, remarkably optimistic. And the plethoric, choleric nature of the sufferer from gout has become proverbial. Before the era of the great bacteriologic discoveries of the eighties and nineties, the concordance of esoteric racial and personal markings was a great help in diagnosis to the physician. For he realized, though he sometimes ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.

... we shall give way to them. Temperaments have been classified as sanguine, melancholic, choleric, and phlegmatic. The sanguine type is inclined to look on the bright side of things, to be optimistic; the melancholic tends to moodiness and gloom; the choleric is easily irritated, quick to anger; the phlegmatic is not easily aroused to emotion, is cold and sluggish. An individual seldom ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education

... the children's playground as long as any one could remember, but in the days of the blessed Frate Agnolo the Syndic was a grim, childless, irascible old man, terribly plagued with gout, which made him so choleric that he could not endure the joyous cries and clatter of the children at their play. So at last in his irritation he gave orders that, if the children must play at all, it would have to be in their own dull narrow alleys paved with hard rock, or outside beyond the walls of ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton

... was all very well while it lasted, for her father, the choleric old Comte de Trecourt, had died rich, and the young girl's charities were doubled, and there was nobody to stay her hand or draw the generous purse-strings; nobody to advise her or to stop her. On ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

... long Greek words without noticing another objectionable abuse of them, whereby, upon the principle that "what in the captain's but a choleric word, is in the soldier flat blasphemy," a distinction is made between vice in the rich and vice in the poor, and that which in the latter is obstinate depravity, to be handled only by the police, becomes in the ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... pleasing expression; lips vermilion, not fine, but not frightful, either; my eyes are blue, neither large nor small, but sparkling, soft, and proud like my mien. I talk a great deal, without saying silly things or using bad words. I am a very vicious enemy, being very choleric and passionate, and that, added to my birth, may well make my enemies tremble; but I have, also, a noble and kindly soul. I am incapable of any base and black deed; and so I am more disposed to mercy ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... we are all biassed in our own favour, and what, when another man says it, is 'flat blasphemy,' we think, when we say it, is only 'a choleric word.' We have fine names for our own vices, and ugly ones for the very same vices in other people. David will flare up into generous and sincere indignation about the man that stole the poor man's ewe lamb, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... is to be known that there are certain vices in the Man to which he is naturally disposed; as certain men of a choleric complexion are disposed to anger: and such vices as these are innate, that is, natural. Others are the vices of habit, for which not the complexion, but habit, or custom, is to blame; such as intemperance, and especially intemperance in wine. But these vices are subdued and put to flight by good ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri

... Spaniards before Zutphen, the 22d of September, when he was getting upon the third horse, having had two slain under him before, he was wounded with a musket-shot out of the trenches, which broke the bone of his thigh. The horse he rode upon was rather furiously choleric, than bravely proud, so forced him to forsake the field, but not his back, as the noblest and fittest bier (says lord Brook) to carry a martial commander to his grave. In this progress, passing along by the rest of the army where his uncle the ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber

... always rush into the arms of the other half, or drive their heads together, or tumble over; and then the crowd laughs vehemently, and invents nicknames for them on the spur of the moment; and they, if they be choleric, tear off the handkerchiefs which blind them, and not unfrequently pitch into one another, each thinking that the other must have run against him on purpose. It is great fun to look at a jingling match certainly, and Tom shouts and jumps on old Benjy's shoulders at the sight, until the old ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes

... head more 'n two thousand year ago, but he felt kind of uncertain, and didn't exactly know what he was driving at. The old heathen made out just four humors, as he called 'em,—the sanguineous, phlegmatic, choleric, and melancholic. If he'd only made one step more on to the other side of the fence, he'd have cracked the nut, and picked the kernel, certain. Those four different humors are only four different ways of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... American doctor, hastening outside, with the active curiosity of the new arrival who has been little under shell fire, to see where the shells had burst. Our little Philadelphia medico had gone, a week before, to join the American forces. His successor was broad-built, choleric, but kind of heart, and came from Ohio. I suspected the new doctor of a sense of humour, as well as of an understanding of current smart-set satire. "They kept me at your base two months," he told me, "but I wanted to see the war. I also heard an English doctor say he would be glad of ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)

... follow, with interest and admiration, the flights of genius; or, with cooler approbation suck in the instruction, which has been elaborately prepared for them by the profound thinker, ought not to be disgusted, if they find the former choleric, and the latter morose; because liveliness of fancy, and a tenacious comprehension of mind, are scarcely compatible with that pliant urbanity which leads a man, at least to bend to the opinions and prejudices of others, instead of ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]

... complexion like a cranberry by candlelight, you will find that there is a degree of absolute certainty about what he thinks he knows that will put any young man to shame. I am specially convinced of this from the case of my friend Colonel Hogshead, a portly, choleric gentleman who made a fortune in the cattle-trade out in Wyoming, and who, in his later days, has acquired a chronic idea that the plays of Shakespeare are the one subject upon which he is most ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock

... eye cocked up to that level?... I am very hot, very choleric. Thou hast seen me. Thou shalt not live. I will slay thee. I shall do such things as make ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford

... man, of some fifty years of age. He was well made, and of that easy, swinging gait, that is rather the teaching of Dame Nature, than of the dancing mistress or posture master. His face was full and ruddy, betokening health, spirits, and that choleric disposition to which his countrymen are said to incline, whether justly or unjustly is not for me to determine. His hair had a reddish tinge, and his whiskers were decidedly roseate, bearing still further testimony to a slight irrascibility of temperament. But he was a good-looking man, in spite ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale

... of the communication which, I am sure from kind feelings, you made to me the other day, had such an effect upon a temper naturally choleric, that I fear I have been guilty of some violence toward you. I am, unfortunately, subject to paroxysms of this sort, and while under their influence feel utterly unconscious of what I do or say. In your case, will you be good enough to let me know—whether I ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... would think they were all going to the bottom immediately.' He walked forward to quell the noise, if possible, but he might as well have stamped and roared at Niagara. Not a voice cared for his threats or his rage, but those within reach of his arm. The choleric little man ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe

... cannot tell you what—for here's the bell-man. I don't wonder 'the choleric man' knocked down the postman for blowing his ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth

... one! Let no man be so bold as to block my path. (to audience) For damme, just tell me why a god like me hasn't as much right to hector people that hinder him as your paltry slave in the comedies? He brings word the ship is safe, or the choleric old man approaching: (magnificently) as for me, I hearken to the word of Jove and at his bidding do I now hie me hither. Wherefore 'tis still more seemly to get out, to get off ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius

... replied the governor, taking Martha Hilton by the hand. The Rev. Arthur Brown hesitated. "As the Chief Magistrate of New Hampshire I command you to marry me!" cried the choleric ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... fellows to ask us to dinner," said the First Lieutenant, an officer with a smiling cherubic visage and a choleric blue eye. "We were getting a bit bored with our hooker. A fortnight of looking for Der Tag gets a bit wearisome. D'you think the devils ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie

... When the choleric royal governor, Lord Dunmore, dissolved the House of Burgesses he accomplished nothing save to increase the bitterness already existing. The Virginia representatives met and chose delegates to the General Congress to meet in Philadelphia, and now Virginia was to have a convention of its ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane

... forward, his hair slightly disarranged, his blue eyes no longer choleric but gently smiling. She realized that he was still goodlooking, still a gentleman, a man of culture and even talent, young enough to move the world, and almost as young in appearance as herself; for mental anxiety and care of any kind always showed directly in ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison

... which was very bad for the village; that Miss Melissa was his daughter, and he had a son, who was with his regiment in India, and, it was said, not on very good terms with his father; that the old gentleman was violent and choleric because he was always in pain; but that every one spoke well of Miss Melissa and Miss Araminta, her cousin, who were both very kind to the poor people. Having obtained these particulars, Spikeman went to bed: he slept little that night, as Joey, who was ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat

... without him. The great man, getting no alleviation from physicians, determines, in his patriotic heroism, to surrender glory itself; writes home to Court, 'That he is lamed, disabled utterly; that they must nominate another General.' And they nominate another; nominate Broglio, the fat choleric Marshal, of Italian breed and physiognomy, whom we saw at Strasburg last year, when Friedrich was there. Broglio will quit Strasburg too soon, and come. A man fierce in fighting, skilled too in tactics; totally incompetent in strategy, or the art of LEADING ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... rough-looking servants, a tall old man in a nightcap and furred gown was giving orders in a loud passionate voice. This personage, who was of a choleric complexion, with a face like mottled red marble, seized Odo by the wrist and led him up a flight of stairs so worn and slippery that he tripped at every step; thence down a corridor and into a gloomy apartment where three ladies shivered about a table set with candles. Bidden by ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... giving them, as in jest, earnest advice: "That from the time they heard the marriage writings read to them, they should account them as indentures, whereby they were made servants; and so, remembering their condition, ought not to set themselves up against their lords." And when they, knowing what a choleric husband she endured, marvelled that it had never been heard, nor by any token perceived, that Patricius had beaten his wife, or that there had been any domestic difference between them, even for one day, and confidentially asking the ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine

... dispensed bounteously to all comers? It was useless, as he fretted and chafed at these untoward omissions, to urge in his own behalf that he did not know of the existence of the mill, and that the miller, being an ungenial and choleric man, might have perversely lent himself to resisting his demand for the custody of the young runaway. No, he told himself emphatically, and with good logic, too, the miller's acrimony rose from the fact of a stranger's discovery of the still and the danger of his introduction into its charmed circle. ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... uncontrollable energy. Great qualities have not been superfluously assigned to the King; the poet could command our sympathy for his situation, without concealing what he had done to bring himself into it. Lear is choleric, overbearing, and almost childish from age, when he drives out his youngest daughter because she will not join in the hypocritical exaggerations of her sisters. But he has a warm and affectionate heart, which is susceptible of the most fervent gratitude; ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... he uttered wonders, and many more than can here be repeated—commending highly the patience of a certain gamester, who would remain all night playing and losing; yea, though of choleric disposition by nature, he would never open his mouth to complain, although he was suffering the martyrdom of Barabbas, provided only his adversary did not cut the cards. At a word, Rodaja uttered so many sage remarks, that, had it not been for the cries he sent ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... have taken him for a guardian layman of the tombs of the martyrs, capable of confessing his faith like them, even to the death. And when Julien determined to approach and to touch him lightly on the shoulder, he saw that, in the nobleman's clear, blue eyes, ordinarily so gay, and sometimes so choleric, sparkled unshed tears. His voice, too, naturally sharp, was softened by the emotion of the thought which his reading, the place, the time, the occupation of his day had awakened ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget

... the cook, mechanically wiping his blade on the tablecloth, hardly realized the foulness of the crime of which he had been guilty, but felt inclined to congratulate himself upon his desperate bravery. Then as he realized that, in addition to the offence for which the choleric Mr. Dunn was even now seeking the aid of the law, there was a dead bulldog and a spoiled carpet to answer for, he resolved upon an immediate departure. He made his way to the back door, and sheathing his knife, crept stealthily down the garden, ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs

... of Count Ugolino, and he adds, "I have always had a passion for song, a passion for verses, and more than a passion for Dante." His education passed later into the hands of a priest, who had spent much time as a teacher in Vienna, and was impetuous, choleric, and thoroughly German in principle. "I was given him to be taught," says Giusti, "but he undertook to tame me"; and he remembered reading with him a Plutarch for youth, and the "Lives of the Saints", but chiefly was, as he says, so "caned, contraried, and martyred" by him, ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells

... Anne, "very apt to be choleric." On hearing that Philip Baboon (Philippe duc d'Anjou) was to succeed to lord Strutt's estates (i.e. the Spanish throne), she said ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... which occupies the great part of my article, is a parenthises. It is time that I returned to my choleric correspondent who rebuked me for being too frivolous about the problem of Spiritualism. My correspondent, who is evidently an intelligent man, is very angry with me indeed. He uses the strongest language. He says I remind ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton

... Worsting the choleric physician in argument was a mere matter of keeping one's own temper, and Shelby took no pride in his victory. It was a relief to know that he knew so little, but the possibility remained that, in the weakness of convalescence, Bernard ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther

... furnace, a reveller and a jangler, accustomed to take toll thrice, and given to all the sins that then abounded. He is the most repulsive figure in the crowd, both vulgar and wicked. In contrast with him is the reve, or steward, of a lordly house,—a slender, choleric man, feared by servants and gamekeepers, yet in favor with his lord, since he always had money to lend, although it belonged to his master; an adroit agent and manager, who so complicated his accounts that no auditor could unravel them or any person bring him in arrears. He rode a fine dappled-gray ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord

... a vicarage gilded? Echo. Gelded. What shall I say to good Sir Raderic, that have no[83] gold here? Echo. Cold cheer. I'll make it my lone request, that he would be good to a scholar. Echo. Choler. Yea, will he be choleric to hear of an art or a science? Echo. Hence. Hence with liberal arts? What, then, will he do with his chancel? Echo. Sell. Sell it? and must a simple clerk be fain to compound then? Echo. Pounds then. What, if I have no pounds? must then my suit ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... The dictum of this my friend comes from a quite different character than myself. He is a great man; he has read everything; seen everything; known everybody. Exception to him could be taken only on one ground. He is perfectly awful. He belongs to an old school; splenetic, choleric. He is Sir-Anthony-Absolute-like; a critic in the spirit of the thundering days of William Ernest Henley. His face is like a beefsteak. His frame is like "a mountain walking." His voice, Johnsonian. He knows more about literature than probably ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday

... the countenance of this proprietor, that he was of a frank, but hasty and choleric temper. He was not above the middle stature, but broad-shouldered, long-armed, and powerfully made, like one accustomed to endure the fatigue of war or of the chase; his face was broad, with large blue eyes, open and frank features, fine teeth, and a well formed head, altogether expressive of ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... choleric!" pleaded the knight, leaning anxiously across the table. "What terms do ye offer, Master Droop? Come, man, give a show of reason ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye

... own family he was indeed the Roman father, one whose word must be law absolute and unquestionable for all his children. Yet withal a just man whose judgments seldom erred in harshness. Although not acrimonious, he was inclined to be choleric, and he was punctilious to a degree that would never have suited my humor on all matters that concerned what he regarded as the sober conduct of life. Enough of this. Let us turn to ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... was a choleric old gentleman, who, having had his own way all his life, was by no means inclined to forego that privilege now that he was advanced in years. As he sat beneath the chestnut-tree, one warm spring day, he felt very ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... under which the patient and his friend had come to the house. The captain discoursed about the wars in other lands, and it is more than probable that he exercised the credulity of the doctor to the utmost. Both the host and the guest were affable to the last degree; for the choleric physician was conscious that he had more than a ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic

... I saw his choleric blue eyes slide round in the direction of Miss Buncle's headgear. ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay

... his hopes upon her, tarrying till she should have seen some little life before he asked her for his wife. He had her father's Godspeed to his wooing, for he was a man whom all men knew honest and generous as the sun, and only choleric with the mean thing. She, also, had given him good cause to think that he should one day take her to his home, a loved and honoured wife. His impulse, when her name passed the Prince's lips, was to draw his sword, for he would have called an emperor to account; but presently ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... the most opposite tangent; but they had begun to warm to it, and to forget everything else, when a succession of lusty hollos from the Squire brought them suddenly to themselves, and to a dead stop. When they looked round, he was making up to them with choleric strides. "What the deuce do you mean, sir, by having telegrams sent here?" cried Mr Wentworth, pitching at his son Frank an ominous ugly envelope, in blue and red, such as the unsophisticated mind naturally trembles at. "Beg your pardon, Gerald; but I never can ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... the world was not owing entirely to her having taken pity on him, and married below her station. And really there was considerable truth in this view of the matter, which she was not inclined to have him forget; and Sir William, being a manly and generous, though at times rather choleric gentleman, generally admitted the truth of her assertion that "she had made him," rather than have any controversy with her about it. One of the first acts of Sir William on arriving to fill his position as Governor, was to order chains put upon all the alleged witches in the prisons. ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson

... wrest perforce thy will. To hear him then, what harm? By open words A scheme of villainy is soon bewrayed. Thou art his father, therefore canst not pay In kind a son's most impious outrages. O listen to him; other men like thee Have thankless children and are choleric, But yielding to persuasion's gentle spell They let their savage mood be exorcised. Look thou to the past, forget the present, think On all the woe thy sire and mother brought thee; Thence wilt thou draw this lesson ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles

... beam-ends by men and boys shouting, 'Wot's the matter with yer anyway? Can't yer get a husband?' and such-like brilliant relevancies. Although she flushed at some of these sallies, she stuck to her guns with a pluck that won her friends. In one of the pauses a choleric old man ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins

... I remember rightly, and preached about it, announcing that "never in the most anxious days of the war had he looked in a newspaper on the Sabbath"; and when ill luck would have it that on the same Sunday I beheld his Reverence, who was a choleric man, hotly stoning a neighbor's hen from his garden, I drew editorial parallels which were not soothing to the reverend temper. What really ailed Mr.—- was that he was lacking in common sense, or he would never have called ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... hands to seize her beautiful black head to press a smack upon her lips. She thrust him back once, twice, with a more and more violent shove, but he returned to the attack, becoming ruder and more vehement. Then she lost her self-control, and the choleric family blood suddenly seethed in her veins. Bending down to the heap of bricks on which she had just sat, she grasped a fragment and, with the speed of lightning, dealt her persecutor a furious blow. Misfortune ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau

... changes made by marriage upon men's minds and humours. One might wear any passion out of a family by culture, as skilful gardeners blot a colour out of a tulip that hurts its beauty. One might produce an affable temper out of a shrew, by grafting the mild upon the choleric; or raise a jack-pudding from a prude, by inoculating mirth and melancholy. It is for want of care in the disposing of our children, with regard to our bodies and minds, that we go into a house and see such different complexions and humours in the same race and family. But to me it is as ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele

... gudgeon; not that a gudgeon can be rubbed to much sense, but that a man grossly deceived is often called a gudgeon. Mr. Upton reads quail, which he proves, by much learning, to be a very choleric bird. Dr. Warburton retains gnat, which is found in the early quarto. Theobald would introduce knot, a small bird of that name. I have followed the text of the folio, ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson

... Lord-Mayor's show; the miser, when he hugs his gold; the courtier, who builds his hopes upon a smile; the savage, who paints his idol with blood; the slave, who worships a tyrant, or the tyrant, who fancies himself a god;—the vain, the ambitious, the proud, the choleric man, the hero and the coward, the beggar and the king, the rich and the poor, the young and the old, all live in a world of their own making; and the poet does no more than describe what all the others think and act. If his art is folly and madness, it is folly and madness ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt

... Choleric men have eyes of every colour, but rather brown or greenish than blue. A propensity to green is an almost decisive token of ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various

... plays are like the landscape-painting of the Chinese,—a wonderfully good copy of the absurdities handed down through generations of artists,—let him go and look at one of these plays. He will see the choleric East-India uncle, with a red face, and a Malacca cane held by the middle, stumping about, and bullying his nephew,—"a young rascal,"—or his niece,—"you baggage, you." When this young person wishes to have a good talk with a friend, they stand up behind the footlights to do ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... 1617. During the play, twelve cavaliers in masks, the central figure of whom was Prince Charles, chose partners, and danced every kind of dance, until they got tired and began to flag; whereupon King James, "who is naturally choleric, got impatient, and shouted aloud, 'Why don't they dance? What did you make me come here for? Devil take you all, dance!' On hearing this, the Marquis of Buckingham, his majesty's most favored minion, immediately ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... caught sight of a face in the depths of the carriage, for he turned purple, and stood staring on the pavement after his choleric parent ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... pure. clavar nail, fasten, fix. coagular coagulate, curdle. cobarde adj. cowardly. cobarde m. coward. codicioso, -a greedy, eager. coger seize, take, catch. cogido (lo) booty, plunder. clera f. anger, wrath. colrico, -a choleric, angry. colgar hang. color m. color, hue, complexion. colorar color, tinge; —se become colored, color. columna f. column, pillar. combatido, -a contending, struggling. combatir combat, attack, contend, fight. comento m. comment, fiction, fabrication. comenzar commence. ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup

... in a low tone to the chiefs, and it inflamed a choleric man like Alloway to hear anyone saying words that he could not understand. He was not able to restrain ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... called the action begins—the "War of the Cakes," in which certain outrageous bakers, subjects of King Picrochole of Lerne, first refuse the custom of the good Grandgousier's shepherds, and then violently assault them, the incident being turned by the choleric monarch into a casus belli against the peaceful one. Invasion, the early triumph of the aggressor, the triumphant appearance of the invincible Friar John, and the complete turning of the tables by the advent of Gargantua and his terrible mare, follow each other in rapid and brilliant telling, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... contempt. He was always too choleric to hide his mind, and he answered with little pretense at civility. He gave them permission to go home, and sent a knife by them to their kindred. It was not for war, he told them, but that they might cut ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith

... don't often see the engineers on this sort of duty. I'm glad the general sent you along. What is it, captain?" he broke off, turning to a gray-mustached, choleric-looking veteran who came suddenly upon them, breathing ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King

... slightly, bent back the flame of the candles, around which moths were fluttering, and caused strange shadows upon the walls. They were thick about the curtained bed whereon had died the elder Haward,—a proud man, choleric, and hard to turn from his purposes. Into the mind of his son, sitting staring at these shadows, came the fantastic notion that amongst them, angry and struggling vainly for speech, might be his father's shade. The night was feverish, of a heat and lassitude to foster grotesque and idle fancies. ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... dreamy and twinklingly alert, were deeply set in a high-cheeked-boned, bronzed face, with a long upper-lipped, grimly-humorous mouth. Its expression in repose gave subtle warning that its owner possessed in a marked degree the strongly melancholic, emotional, and choleric temperament of his race. There was no moroseness—no hardness in it, but rather the taciturnity that invariably settles upon the face of those dwellers of the range who, perforce, live much alone with their thoughts. Sheathed in mail and armed, ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall

... Administration, is looked upon with almost superstitious aversion, and is always to be avoided if possible. It was remembered that all the woes of the elder Adams' Administration, all the intrigues which the choleric President fancied that Hamilton was carrying on against him in connection with our French difficulties, had their origin in the extra session of May, 1797. It was remembered also that the unpopularity which attached to the Presidency of Mr. Madison was connected with the two extra sessions ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... into his opponent's eye so long for nothing. He knew now that de Mezy was choleric and impatient, that he would attack at once with a vigorous arm and a furious heart, expecting a quick and easy victory. His reading of the mind through the eye was vindicated as de Mezy immediately forced the combat, cutting and thrusting ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler

... sentenced to banishment, had yet the boldness to enter the hall where he himself dined, and to sit at table with his attendants. Enraged at this insolence, he ordered him to leave the room; but on his refusing to obey, the king, whose temper, naturally choleric, was inflamed by this additional insult, leaped on him himself, and seized him by the hair: but the ruffian, pushed to extremity, drew his dagger, and gave Edmund a wound, of which he immediately expired. This event happened in the year 946, and in the sixth year of the king's reign. Edmund left ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... mornin' for sport," remarked Mr. Richard Grubb to his fellow—passenger, a stout gentleman between fifty and sixty years of age, with a choleric physiognomy and a ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour

... feelings. I have seen him attempt it repeatedly and as often choke with rage." At last the frontier in the person of its typical man had found a place in the Government. This six-foot backwoodsman, with blue eyes that could blaze on occasion, this choleric, impetuous, self-willed Scotch-Irish leader of men, this expert duelist, and ready fighter, this embodiment of the tenacious, vehement, personal West, was in politics to stay. The frontier democracy of that time had the instincts of the ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... gravity and brevity on the other; which thin correspondence one can see growing ever the thinner and hollower, towards the verge of entire vacuity. (Bouille, Memoires (London, 1797), i. c. 8.) A quick, choleric, sharply discerning, stubbornly endeavouring man; with suppressed-explosive resolution, with valour, nay headlong audacity: a man who was more in his place, lionlike defending those Windward Isles, or, as with military tiger-spring, clutching Nevis and Montserrat from the English,—than ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... bite me, their company would be more pleasant to me than that of men, who are choleric and intolerable. But I abide by what I have said, that, if my husband were in a like danger, I should not leave him ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... frowning and muttering in his choleric fashion, but the fierce glitter began to go out of his eyes and his hands ceased to tremble and clutch at the things before him. The girl was silent, because again there seemed to her to be nothing that ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman

... man who is subjected to choleric outbursts should never send for anything but food an hour before dinner, for the reason that a very trivial thing looks, at that time, big enough to wreck the nation. Bissell, however, failed to recollect this simple ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan

... his father, in the exercise of war and hunting; Constantinople was yet spared; but in the three years of a short reign, he thrice led his armies into the heart of Bulgaria. His virtues were sullied by a choleric and suspicious temper: the first of these may be ascribed to the ignorance of control; and the second might naturally arise from a dark and imperfect view of the corruption of mankind. On a march in Bulgaria, he consulted on a question of policy his principal ministers; and the Greek logothete, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... entirely altered. I know not what it is to laugh, or smile, or be pleasant. I am grown choleric and impatient, and ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... term which he applied to all pro-Germans, pacifists and half the Cabinet, he did not concern himself about Gedge. Young Randall Holmes's intimacy with the scoundrel seemed to him a matter of far greater importance. He strode up and down his library, choleric ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... into Kentucky, had married a rich wife with many slaves, and had become a vehement partisan for slavery. But because he was born in the same State with myself, and because I could tell him much about that people that were once his people, he was glad to have me stop with him. Being old and choleric, he would go off into a fierce passion against the abolitionists. He would say: "These men are thieves! Our niggers are our property, and they steal our property. They might as well steal our horses." After awhile he would begin to talk about his ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler

... angry burghers, collected on the porch of Cordea's tavern, in a fume as they listen to Master John Llewellin's account of what had taken place,—Llewellin himself as peppery as his namesake when he made Ancient Pistol eat his leek; and I fancy I can hear Alderman Van Swearingen's choleric explosion against Lord Effingham, supposing his Lordship should presume to slight the order of the Council in respect to ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various

... Zeitung complains that English prisoners in Germany "are allowed to lead the lives of Olympian Gods." Our choleric contemporary is evidently unaware that we are allowing German prisoners to reside in Olympia, which is the next ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 11, 1914 • Various

... and 23 were each directing their ire against an individual, the person who is responsible for the explosion in Fig. 24 is for the moment at war with the whole world round him. It may well express the sentiment of some choleric old gentleman, who feels himself insulted or impertinently treated, for the dash of orange intermingled with the scarlet implies that his pride has been seriously hurt. It is instructive to compare the radiations of this plate with those of Fig. 11. ...
— Thought-Forms • Annie Besant

... to the presidency in 1829. He was a fearless man, an ardent patriot, with a choleric temper and an imperious will. He carried to an unexampled extent a custom, which had begun with Jefferson, of supplanting office-holders of the opposite political party by supporters of the administration. This came to be called the "spoils system," from the ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... without ever saying nay thereto; and many a time of his proper choice he had been known to wound men and do them to death with his own hand. He was a terrible blasphemer of God and the saints, and that for every trifle, being the most choleric man alive. To church he went never and all the sacraments thereof he flouted in abominable terms, as things of no account; whilst, on the other hand, he was still fain to haunt and use taverns and other lewd places. Of women he was as fond as dogs ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... ask'd the witness's high race, Whose oath with martyrdom did Stephen grace? Ours was a Levite, and as times went then, His tribe were God Almighty's gentlemen. Sunk were his eyes, his voice was harsh and loud, Sure signs he neither choleric was, nor proud. His long chin proved his wit; his saint-like grace A church vermilion, and a Moses' face. His memory miraculously great, 650 Could plots, exceeding man's belief, repeat; Which therefore cannot be accounted lies, For human wit could never such ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... nature an humble man, nor one glib at confession; but there is one thing I will say, my love, this choleric temperament of mine has been to me severer flagellation than was ever administered by priestly hands in expiation of heinous offenses. But I will down it yet, my love; God helping me, ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea

... in the other. A door closes above, and SIR WILLIAM CHESHIRE, in evening dress, comes downstairs. He is perhaps fifty-eight, of strong build, rather bull-necked, with grey eyes, and a well-coloured face, whose choleric autocracy is veiled by a thin urbanity. He speaks ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... completely concealing the bed and its occupant after the murder. The actor had long before become again Shakespeare's Othello. We had seen him tortured, racked, and played upon by the malignant Iago; seen him, while perplexed in the extreme, irascible, choleric, sullen, morose; but now, as with tense nerves we waited for the catastrophe, he was truly formidable. The great tragedy moved on. Desdemona's piteous entreaties had been choked in her slim throat, the smothering pillow held in place with merciless strength. ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris

... feaster and rioter, it seems, who had little right (he thought) to carry sword or bow, and who, to show it, hath slunk away. And then another raised his anger: he was indignant that, under his roof, a woman should be exposed to stoning. Which of you would not be as choleric in a like affront? In the house of which among you should I ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... good enough for thieves!" shouted the choleric individual who had so pointedly made known his distrust of Lucky Broad. "I say ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach

... Shortly afterwards he returned for another burden, and this he repeated several times. I suppose he was building a nest,—at least, I know not what else could have been his object. Never was there such an active, cheerful, choleric, continually-in-motion fellow as this little red squirrel, talking to himself, chattering at me, and as sociable in his own person as if he had half a dozen companions, instead of being alone in the lonesome wood. Indeed, he flitted about so quickly, ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... exclaimed; then he stooped a little, his trousers bagging still more, and he stood in an attitude almost stagy, a flare of choleric surprise leaping into his face. "Phyllis Sommerton. what do you mean? Are you crazy? You say that ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden

... Honour is developing an ungovernable irritability and a tendency to choleric obsessions, when the word 'Uitlander' is barely mentioned in his presence, that are causing the greatest concern to those around him. Only on some such grounds are explicable the raging exclamations he is reported to have permitted himself to ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... creature of a most perfect and divine temper: one, in whom the humours and elements are peaceably met, without emulation of precedency; he is neither too fantastically melancholy, too slowly phlegmatic, too lightly sanguine, or too rashly choleric; but in all so composed and ordered; as it is clear Nature went about some full work, she did more than make a man when she made him. His discourse is like his behaviour, uncommon, but not unpleasing; he is prodigal of neither. ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson

... merry still, laughing, pleasant, meditating on plays, women, music, &c. Phlegmatic, slothful, dull, heavy, &c. Choleric, furious, impatient, subject to hear and see strange apparitions, &c. Black, solitary, sad; they think they are bewitched, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... or Chandra Babu, as he was usually called, was a rich banker with many obsequious customers. He was a short choleric man, very fond of his hookah, without which he was rarely seen in public. He had no family, except a wife who served him uncomplainingly, and never received a letter or was known to write one except in the course of business. His birthplace, nay ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea

... Oates was by nature choleric; and the credit he had acquired made him insolent and conceited. Even his exterior was portentous. A fleece of white periwig showed a most uncouth visage, of great length, having the mouth, as the organ by use of which he was to rise to eminence, placed in the very centre of the countenance, ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... even sultry, but not oppressive. In fact, the thermometer has not throughout the tour given any markedly choleric displays of temper. The Pyrenees, lying as they do so far toward the south, had held for us vague intimations of southern heat: linked closely in latitude with the Riviera and with mid-Italy, we ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix

... vernacular, was "ferninst him." Leprosy is a contagious disease, within certain degrees of consanguinity, and by riding his pigs afield he communicated it to them; so that in a few weeks, barring the fact that they were hogs, they were no better off than he. Mr. Smith was an irritable old gentleman, so choleric he made his bondsmen tremble—though he was now abroad upon his own recognizances. Dreading his wrath, Bladud quitted his employ, without giving the usual week's notice, but so far conforming to custom in other respects as to take his master's ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)

... favourite actor, was not playing, but Brasseur and Eve la Valliere amused him, and he found special delight in the Mariage de Mademoiselle Beulemans. Yet not even the acting of Jaques as the good-natured, choleric old Belgian brewer could induce him to depart from his practice of going away ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... each point presented. It was beginning to look serious for Foster. Clearly, in his determination to win his suit, the prosecution was losing sight of the simple justice the Government desired. And a man less dramatic, less choleric, with less of a reputation for political intrigue than Miles Feversham might better have defended Stuart Foster. Foster was so frank, so honest, so eager to make the Alaska situation understood. And it was not an isolated case; there were hundreds of ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson

... from his high altitude looked down on the choleric little man before him; but not even for a second did he seem to lose his own imperturbable good-humour. He laughed his own pleasant and inane laugh, and burying his slender, long hands into the capacious ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy

... true man, while his son stands here on the verge of the new.... A virtue he had which I should learn to imitate: he never spoke of what was disagreeable and past. His was a healthy mind. He had the most open contempt for all "clatter."... He was irascible, choleric, and we all dreaded his wrath, but passion never mastered him.... Man's face he did not fear: God he always feared. His reverence was, I think, considerably mixed with fear—rather awe, as of unutterable depths of silence through which flickered a ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol

... lieutenant. I noticed that when you handed over your gun to me so lamblike." He laughed it out flippantly, buoyantly, though it was on his mind to wonder whether the choleric little officer might not kill him out of ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine

... of misrepresentation is, that travellers are not aware of the jealousy existing between the inhabitants of the different states and cities. The eastern states pronounce the southerners to be choleric, reckless, regardless of law, and indifferent as to religion; while the southerners designate the eastern states as a nursery of overreaching pedlars, selling clocks and wooden nutmegs. This running into ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... extent of Murphy's connection with civilisation was never more than fifteen miles down the line, Torrance and Tressa could laugh without offending his choleric feelings. ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan

... dogmatic; and, though we cannot doubt his piety, we must feel that his spirit is somewhat repulsive and ungenial. Whilst he was sadly deficient in sagacity, he was very much the creature of impulse; and thus it was that he was so superstitious, so bigoted, and so choleric. But he was, beyond question, possessed of erudition and of genius; and when he advocates a right principle, he can expound, defend, and illustrate it with great ability ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... his face crimsoning with anger, for he was a choleric little old gentleman, was the Corporal, and as quick to become enraged as to do a good action; "hold! No man shall call me villain with impunity; I shot two rascally Dons at Madrid for the same word, and by God, sir, if ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson

... courteous old man, very shy, and, in his later years, never leaving his house, and amusing himself with speculating upon music and the prophecies. He inherited apparently the nervous temperament of his family with less than their usual dash of the choleric.[19] My uncle, Sir George, declares that the serjeant was appointed to a judgeship by Lord Lyndhurst, but immediately resigned, on the ground that he felt that he could never bear to pass a capital sentence.[20] I record the anecdote, not as true (I have reasons for thinking it erroneous), ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... of body and not choleric, nor easily cast down at disappointments and losses, seldom immoderately grieving at misfortunes, unless for the loss of their nearest relations and friends, which seems to make a more than ordinary impression upon them. Many of the women ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... than probable that, under ordinary circumstances, Mr. Coe would have resented this rebuke with choleric vehemence; but he had his reasons for being good-humored in the present instance. "You must excuse my country manners, Mrs. Basil," said he. "As my wife will tell you, I must always have my joke; but I mean no offense. So you were housekeeper ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn

... hermitage, he becomes aware of what has transpired during his absence by his spiritual powers, and congratulates Sakuntala on having chosen a husband worthy of her in every respect. Next day, when Sakuntala is deeply absorbed in thoughts about her absent lord, the celebrated choleric sage Durvasa comes and demands the rights of hospitality. But he is not greeted with due courtesy by Sakuntala owing to her pre-occupied state. Upon this, the ascetic pronounces a curse that he whose thought ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta

... somehow feeling at ease with this choleric old General, in the course of the next twenty minutes explained many things to him, including the cause of his ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard

... part of Hudibras he died, on the 25th of September 1680, and was buried by his friend Longueville, a bencher of the Middle Temple, in the churchyard of St Paul's, Covent Garden. He was, we are told, "of a leonine-coloured hair, sanguine, choleric, middle-sized, strong." A portrait by Lely at Oxford and others elsewhere represent him ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... From the choleric exhibition he gave there and then it has been an unceasing wonder with me to this day that he has not long ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London



Words linked to "Choleric" :   quick-tempered, hot-tempered, short-tempered, choler, irascible, hotheaded, passionate, ill-natured, angry



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