Jan in Ketchikan, Alaska, says when she worked in a hospital in Maine, co-workers described a patient with a low pain threshold or otherwise reluctant to move about as spleeny. New Englanders in particular use the term spleeny to mean fussy, hypochondriacal, or malingering. The blood-filtering organ called the spleen takes its name from a similar-sounding word in ancient Greek. The phrase to vent your spleen means to express anger. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Spleeny”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Jan, and I’m calling from Ketchikan, Alaska.
Ketchikan, Alaska. Welcome to the show, Jan.
Hi, Jan. How can we help?
I had a question about a word that I heard about 35 years ago when I worked in a hospital in down east Maine. And mostly it was just older people that said it, but they used the word spleeny to describe someone with a low pain threshold, particularly around the hospital. Somebody wouldn’t get out of bed after surgery, things like that. They’d say, oh, he’s just being spleeny. I didn’t know if you guys had any insight to that. You know, the heart is for affection, and you feel fear in the pit of your stomach if the spleen is the organ of cowardice or what that means.
Oh, interesting question. Yeah.
Yeah, so you don’t hear it there in Alaska?
No, no, it was just in Maine. It was a Maine term, pretty much by the older people. Spleeny, S-P-L-E-E-N-Y, spleeny?
I have no idea how they spell it. I never saw it written.
Yeah, so it’s that organ that’s a blood filter, basically. And the term spleeny, meaning hypochondriacal or complaining or fussy or… Malingering. Malingering, squeamish, that kind of thing. You do hear that particularly in the Northeast, particularly New England.
Or down east if you’re in Alaska.
Yeah, or down east Maine, yeah. We think of spleen, I mean, there’s the expression to vent your spleen, which is to vent a bad temper, that kind of thing. But yeah, that’s pretty localized to New England.
And a couple hundred years, right?
Yeah, yeah, it has a long history. And it just has to do with the spleen, actual, the organ, the spleen.
Yeah, interestingly enough, the word spleen comes from a similar sounding Greek word that in ancient Greek is sort of the equivalent of the heart. You know, the metaphorical equivalent of the heart. So if you’re well-spleened, then it means that you’re good-hearted or compassionate.
Well, that’s interesting. I love that you hung on to it for 35 years.
35 years.
Okay, appreciate the information.
Okay, bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
