Dear Bill

Splenetic comes, if I am not misremembering, from the theory of humours, much popular in the middle ages and even into Shakespeare's time. After all, Ben Jonson wrote Every Man in his Humour around this very theory.

Splenetic, bilious (from bile), sanguine (from blood) and choleric (from choler - and I can't remember which organ this was associated with) were the four humours. Each was supposed to be perfectly balanced with the other in the body, in order to create a well-rounded personality. The theory was that an excess of any of these humours (liquids) would result in a character with a preponderance of whatever that humour created. A sanguine person was therefore cheery, on not serious about things. A choleric person was cold. A bilious person bitter, and a splenetic person, as you know, given to outbursts of rage.

Actually, the humours, and the emotions/characteristics associated with them, were subject to change over time, and the way in which we use the words today is not identical to the way in which Jonson used them, for instance.

I know I should have looked it up in order to provide you with authoritative stuff on this, but I'm lazy as a sloth - any decent google should provide you with enough reference material - "humours in Elizabethan literature" might be a good start.

cheer

the sunshine warrior