saturnine

Meaning

Adjective

• Of a person: having a tendency to be cold, bitter, gloomy, sarcastic, and slow to change and react.
• Of a setting: depressing, dull, gloomy.
• Of, pertaining to, or containing lead (which was symbolically associated with the planet Saturn by alchemists).
• Of a disease: caused by lead poisoning (saturnism); of a person: affected by lead poisoning.
• Pertaining to the astrological influence of the planet Saturn; having the characteristics of a person under such influence (see sense 1).

Origin

• From Middle English saturnine, satournine, satournyne, saturnin, saturnyn, saturnyne, from Old French saturnine, saturnin (modern French saturnin), or directly from its etymon Medieval Latin Sāturnīnus, from Sāturnus + -īnus; analysable as Saturn + -ine. The English word is cognate with Italian saturnino, Portuguese saturnino, Spanish saturnino.
• 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.