bile
/baɪl/ noun, proper noun
Forms biles biling bileing biled
- noun A bitter brownish-yellow or greenish-yellow secretion produced by the liver, stored in the gall bladder, and discharged into the duodenum where it aids the process of digestion.
- noun Bitterness of temper; ill humour; irascibility.
- noun Either of two of the four humours, black bile or yellow bile, in ancient and medieval physiology.
- noun (obsolete) A boil (kind of swelling).
- proper noun A Bantu language spoken in Nigeria.
Synonyms
Etymology
From Middle French bile, from Latin bīlis (“bile”).
Partially displaced native English gall (“bile”), from Middle English galle, from Old English galla, ġealla (“gall, bile”).
Obsolete form of boil. Akin to Dutch buil and German Beule, all from Proto-Germanic *būlǭ.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A yellow, or greenish, viscid fluid, usually alkaline in reaction, secreted by the liver. It passes into the intestines, where it aids in the digestive process. Its characteristic constituents are the bile salts, and coloring matters.
- noun Bitterness of feeling; choler; anger; ill humor; as, to stir one's bile. Prescott.
- noun A boil. [Obs. or Archaic]
Etymology [L. bilis: cf. F. bile.]
Etymology [OE. byle, bule, bele, AS. b, b; skin to D. buil, G. beule, and Goth. ufbauljan to puff up. Cf. Boil a tumor, Bulge.]
Sources: Wiktionary · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “bile”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details