yellow bile

noun

: the one of the four humors (see humor entry 1 sense 2c) in ancient and medieval physiology that was believed to be hot and dry and to cause anger and irritability

… the humoral science of the ancient Greeks, which held that unevenness between the body's four humors—blood, phlegm, choler (yellow bile) and melancholy (black bile)—caused every kind of ailment.

—Michael Snyder

Examples of yellow bile in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Hippocrates was guided in his thinking by the theory of humoral medicine, which posited that there are four humors (blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile), which must be balanced for good health. —Nina Elkadi, JSTOR Daily, 2 Oct. 2024

The way the seasons withered crops or provoked tree sap to flow might manifest in the body as yellow bile surging in the summer and cold, wet phlegm dripping in the winter. —Meg Leja, Smithsonian Magazine, 10 Nov. 2023

The way the seasons withered crops or provoked tree sap to flow might manifest in the body as yellow bile surging in the summer, and cold, wet phlegm dripping in the winter. —Discover Magazine, 7 Nov. 2023

The theory contends that four fluids — blood, choler (yellow bile), phlegm and black bile — make up the body and must maintain balance for good health. —Sara Novak, Discover Magazine, 5 Apr. 2023

Hippocrates, the Greek physician who is sometimes called the father of medicine, wrote in the fifth century B.C.E. that the body has four humors—phlegm, yellow bile, black bile, and blood—which correspond to the hot, cold, wet, and dry weather of the Mediterranean. —Lorraine Boissoneault, The New Yorker, 30 July 2022

What are some other possible causes of your dog throwing up yellow bile? —Amber Smith, Discover Magazine, 15 Oct. 2022

An excess of yellow bile, for instance, caused rheumatism; too much black bile caused cancer. —Jack Feerick, Discover Magazine, 16 Dec. 2020

Medical ideas in the Middle Ages were based on four bodily humours: blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile. —Donna Sarkar, Discover Magazine, 12 Feb. 2021

Word History

First Known Use

1634, in the meaning defined above

Medical Definition

yellow bile

noun

yel·​low bile ˈyel-ō- 

: the one of the four humors (see humor sense 2) in ancient and medieval physiology that was believed to be hot and dry and to cause anger and irritability