enantiodromia

Pronounced: ih-nan-tee-uh-DROH-mee-uh, noun

Notes: I’m in a quandry about this word; I didn’t know the word, but I don’t believe the philosophy it describes (more tomorrow).

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Yesterday’s word

The word splenetic means “marked by bad temper, malevolence, or spite”

First usage

This word came into English in the mid-1500s

Background / Comments

I should have known this word because of the word word “spleen”, which I’ve seen in old writing to refer to bad temper for very little reason. This idea goes back to the belief (now discredited, I believe) that a person was made up of differing amounts of four basic temperaments. One of these was influenced by the spleen; people with excess spleen production could be easily irritated, and thus we have the origin of today’s word. (the Latin for spleen is splen). This word could also mean “of the spleen”, but the definition above is more interesting, I think.