{"id":7155,"date":"2025-08-17T02:08:31","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T02:08:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/?p=7155"},"modified":"2025-08-17T02:10:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T02:10:08","slug":"word-of-the-day-choleric","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/2025\/08\/17\/word-of-the-day-choleric\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Day: Choleric"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today\u2019s word of the day, thanks to WordGuru.com, is choleric<\/em>. Pronounced \/ \u02c8k\u0252l \u0259r \u026ak \/ or \/ k\u0259\u02c8l\u025br \u026ak \/ (stress on first or second syllable), the adjective means \u201cextremely irritable or easily angered; irascible,\u201d although there is an obsolete meaning of bilious (https:\/\/www.dictionary.com\/browse\/choleric<\/a>). Samuel Johnson, in his 1755 Dictionary, lists as his first definition, \u201cAbounding with choler\u201d (https:\/\/johnsonsdictionaryonline.com\/views\/search.php?term=choleric<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Merriam-Webster gives this: \u201ceasily moved to often unreasonable or excessive anger : hot-tempered\u201d and \u201cangry, irate\u201d (https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/choleric<\/a>). M-W also provides this as a definition of bilious<\/em>: \u201cof or indicative of a peevish ill-natured disposition\u201d or \u201csickeningly unpleasant\u201d (https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/bilious<\/a>). Then it gives an explanation which applies to choleric <\/em>as well as to bilious<\/em>: \u201cBilious is one of several words whose origins trace to the old belief that four bodily humors (black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood) control temperament. Just like phlegmatic (\u2018of a slow and stolid phlegm-driven character\u2019), melancholy (\u2018experiencing dejection associated with black bile\u2019), and sanguine (\u2018of a cheerful, blood-based disposition\u2019), bilious suggests a personality associated with an excess of one of the humors\u2014in this case, yellow bile. Such a personality may also be described as unreasonable, peevish, or ill-tempered, as typified by Charlotte Bront\u00eb in her 1849 novel, Shirley: \u2018These two men, of hard, bilious natures both, rarely came into contact but they chafed each other\u2019s moods\u2019\u201d (ibid.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It first appears in English in the \u201cmid-14c., colrik<\/em>, \u2018bilious of temperament or complexion,\u2019 from Old French colerique<\/em>, from Late Latin cholericus<\/em>, from Greek kholerikos<\/em>, from Greek kholera<\/em> \u2018a type of disease characterized by diarrhea, supposedly caused by bile,\u2019 from khole<\/em> \u2018gall, bile,\u2019 so called for its color, related to khloazein<\/em> \u2018to be green,\u2019 khl\u014dros<\/em> \u2018pale green, greenish-yellow,\u2019 from PIE root *ghel-<\/strong><\/a> (2) \u2018to shine,\u2019 with derivatives denoting \u2018green, yellow,\u2019 and thus \u2018bile, gall.\u2019 Meaning \u2018easily angered, hot-tempered\u2019 is from 1580s (from the supposed effect of excess choler); that of \u2018pertaining to cholera\u2019 is from 1834\u201d (https:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/search?q=choleric<\/a>). So choler<\/em>, the root word of choleric<\/em>, means the same thing as bile<\/em>: \u201clate 14c., \u2018bile,\u2019 as one of the humors, an excess of which was supposed in old medicine to cause irascibility or temper, from Old French colere<\/em> \u2018bile, anger,\u2019 from Late Latin cholera<\/em> \u2018bile\u2019\u201d (ibid.). Cholera<\/em>, the disease, is also derived from the PIE root word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On this date in 1962, \u201cRingo Starr replaces Pete Best as the Beatles’ drummer, with the first official concert two days later\u201d (https:\/\/www.onthisday.com\/events\/august\/16<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Randolph Peter Best (b. 1941) was actually born in Madras, India. His father was in the British military, but he died in the war. His mother then married Johnny Best, who family was from Liverpool. They then left India in late 1945 and returned to England, specifically to Liverpool, where Pete Best grew up. \u201cBest passed the eleven plus exam at Blackmoor Park primary school in West Derby and was studying at the Liverpool Collegiate Grammar School in Shaw Street when he decided he wanted to be in a music group. Mona bought him a drum kit from Blackler’s music store, and Best formed his own band, the Black Jacks\u201d (https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pete_Best).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1959, Best encouraged his mother to open a club in the basement of their large Victorian home, a place where he and his friends could listen to the popular music of the time. A group called The Quarrymen, comprised of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ken Brown, helped with the painting of the club and then became the club\u2019s resident group. The Quarrymen eventually left The Casbah because of a dispute over money, and the Blackjacks became the club band. It included Ken Brown, who left The Quarrymen (https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pete_Best<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the Blackjacks broke up, McCartney recruited Best to become the drummer for The Quarrymen, although by this time the group had worked their way through several name changes, finally settling on The Beatles. He began his time with the group in Hamburg, and the group actually included five members\u2014Stuart Sutcliffe played bass. Sutcliffe eventually left the group to pursue his art (ibid.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the Beatles manager, Brian Epstein, first arranged studio recordings for the group, to try to get them a record deal, some of the studio executives determined that Best\u2019s work was not up to snuff. Epstein and the other three members of the band agonized over what to do. Best was popular, especially with girls, in live performances, but they feared his studio work would hold the group back. Eventually, the desire to have a recording career outweighed the live performance angle, and Epstein informed Best that he was being replaced (ibid.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ringo Starr left another group to join The Beatles, and the rest is history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, I never learned to play a musical instrument growing up. I wish I had, but I was the third of three boys, and my parents, who tried to get my older brothers to learn piano, had pretty much given up, so no piano lessons for me. In fourth grade I tried, very briefly to learn the trombone, but that effort lasted but a few weeks. So with my limited background, I would have no way of determining whether somebody was good enough to play for recordings or not. Even the drummer. But I\u2019m pretty sure that were I Pete Best, I\u2019d be somewhat choleric after being summarily dumped like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s image is The Beatles \u201cat Hamburg Funfair in 1960, photographed by Astrid Kirchherr.\u201d The members of the group are \u201cLeft to right: Pete Best, George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and Stuart Sutcliffe\u201d (https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Beatles<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s word of the day, thanks to WordGuru.com, is choleric. Pronounced \/ \u02c8k\u0252l \u0259r \u026ak \/ or \/ k\u0259\u02c8l\u025br \u026ak \/ (stress on first or second syllable), the adjective means […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7156,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[890,238,395,284,891],"class_list":["post-7155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-word-of-the-day","tag-choleric","tag-dictionary","tag-etymology","tag-linguistics","tag-the-beatles","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7155"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7157,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7155\/revisions\/7157"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}