Word of the Day

: March 7, 2015

dyspepsia

noun dis-PEP-shuh

What It Means

1 : indigestion

2 : ill humor : disgruntlement

dyspepsia in Context

The meatball sandwich was delicious, but not worth the dyspepsia suffered because of it.

"His Coughlin Sideline Scowl ought to be copyrighted. It's a perfect blend of dyspepsia, anger, frustration, and befuddlement. No one expresses displeasure any better or more photogenically." - Bob Brookover, Philadelphia Inquirer, December 7, 2014

Did You Know?

When people get indigestion, they are often affected by nausea, heartburn, and gas-things that can cause the world's greatest gastronome to curse the world's most delectable dishes. So, it is no wonder that dyspepsia, a word for indigestion, has also come to mean "ill humor" or "disgruntlement." The word itself is ultimately derived from the Greek prefix dys- ("faulty" or "impaired") and the verb pessein ("to cook" or "to digest"). To please the wordmonger's appetite, we would like to end with this tasty morsel: Dyspepsia has an opposite, eupepsia-a rarely used word meaning "good digestion."