humours
Medieval medical liquids
Humours is the British spelling of humors.
In medieval and Renaissance medicine, the four humours—blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile—were bodily fluids thought to determine temperament and health.
An imbalance caused illness or mood disorders, which is why we still speak of being in good humour or out of humour.
To humour someone is to indulge them: She humoured his eccentricities.
Liver-made digestive fluid
- phlegmViscous airway secretion
- bloodBody's oxygen carrier
- sanguineCheerfully optimistic temperament
- cholericEasily provoked to anger
melancholic · phlegmatic · Galen · Hippocrates · bloodletting · leeches · cupping · purgation
Cheerfully optimistic temperament
- cholericEasily provoked to anger
- melancholicInclined toward reflective sorrow
- phlegmaticUnemotionally calm, slow-reacting
- dispositionInherent character or arrangement
constitution · temperament · character · personality · traits · archetype · psychology · introvert
Spontaneous, capricious notions
- capricesSudden impulsive urges
- fanciesFeels attraction toward
- indulgenceYielding to desire
- dispositionInherent character or arrangement
temper · state · spirits · frame of mind · sullenness · cheerfulness · petulance · peevishness
Clever, inventive humor
- satireMockery exposing vice
- farceAbsurd, laughable situation
- parodySatirical imitation
- jestHumorous remark or act
banter · slapstick · drollery · facetiousness · jocularity · buffoonery · clowning · absurdity
bile
Liver-made digestive fluid
choleric · melancholic · phlegmatic · Galen · Hippocrates · bloodletting · leeches · cupping · purgation · humoral
sanguine
Cheerfully optimistic temperament
- cholericEasily provoked to anger
- melancholicInclined toward reflective sorrow
- phlegmaticUnemotionally calm, slow-reacting
disposition · constitution · temperament · character · personality · traits · archetype · psychology · introvert · extrovert
whims
Spontaneous, capricious notions
- capricesSudden impulsive urges
- fanciesFeels attraction toward
- indulgenceYielding to desire
disposition · temper · state · spirits · frame of mind · sullenness · cheerfulness · petulance · peevishness · moodiness
wit
Clever, inventive humor
jest · banter · slapstick · drollery · facetiousness · jocularity · buffoonery · clowning · absurdity · levity
placate
Lessen someone's anger
accommodate · pamper · cater · oblige · satisfy · yield · concede · tolerate · go along with · give in to
- obsolete sciencephlogiston, aether, phlogiston theory, ether, caloric
- Old Sciencephlogiston, aether, ether, caloric, miasma
- Old-Fashioned Medicineague, apoplexy, consumption, dropsy, grippe
- humoral medicineblack bile, yellow bile, phlegm, bile, Hippocratic corpus
- obsolete biologyspontaneous generation, vitalism, vital force, preformation, acquired traits
- madnessmadness, lunacy, insanity, mania, schizophrenia
humoursgerm theory
Disease caused by microorganisms
evidence-based medicine · biomedicine · pathology · microbiology · biochemistry
humoursneurotransmitters
Chemical neural messengers
personality traits · psychology · neuroscience · brain chemistry · genetics
- sense of humourCapacity for amusement
- dark humourComedy about taboo subjects
- dry humourComedy without obvious signals
- black humourComedy about morbid topics
- toilet humourComedy about excretion
- gallows humourJokes about dire situations