spleen /spliːn/noun 5verb 5forms 3 noun5 •In vertebrates, including humans, a ductless vascular gland, located in the upper left abdomen near the stomach, which destroys old red blood cells, removes debris from the bloodstream, acts as a reservoir of blood, and produces lymphocytes. •A fit of immoderate laughter or merriment. •A bad mood; spitefulness. Compare gall.In noble minds some dregs remain, / Not yet purged off, of spleen and sour disdain. — 1711 •(no longer used, rare) A sudden motion or action; a fit; a freak; a whim.A thousand spleens bear her a thousand ways. Brief as the lightning in the collied night; That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and Earth — 1593 •(no longer used) Melancholy; hypochondriacal affections.Bodies changed to various forms by spleen. — 1712 verb5 •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 •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 •To remove the spleen, or, by extension, to gore."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 •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 •(no longer used) To dislike. formsspleened · spleening · spleens
