Link Centre Dictionary

saturnine

sa·tur·nine

UK/ˈsætənaɪn/ US/-nɪn/ uncommon archaic obsolete

adjective

1.

bitter or scornful

  • “the face was saturnine and swarthy, and the sensual lips...twisted with disdain” Oscar Wilde
Similar
2.

showing a brooding ill humor

  • “a dark scowl”
  • “the proverbially dour New England Puritan”
  • “a glum, hopeless shrug”
  • “he sat in moody silence”
  • “a morose and unsociable manner”
  • “a saturnine, almost misanthropic young genius” Bruce Bliven
  • “a sour temper”
  • “a sullen crowd”
Synonyms
Similar

Origin

From Middle English saturnine, satournine, satournyne, saturnin, saturnyn, saturnyne (“pertaining to or under the influence of the planet Saturn; line on the palm of the hand associated with Saturn”), from Old French saturnine, saturnin (modern French saturnin (“of, pertaining to, resembling or containing lead, plumbic”)), or directly from its etymon Medieval Latin Sāturnīnus, from Sāturnus (“the Roman god Saturn; the planet Saturn”) + -īnus (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’); analysable as Saturn + -ine. The English word is cognate with Italian saturnino (“saturnine”), Portuguese saturnino (“melancholy, saturnine; pertaining to the planet Saturn”), Spanish saturnino (“melancholy, saturnine; pertaining to the planet Saturn”). Sense 1 (“having a tendency to be cold, bitter, gloomy, etc.”) refers to the fact that individuals born under the astrological influence of the planet Saturn were believed to have that disposition.

Phrases

  • saturnine gout
  • saturnine mount

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.