A substance or humor in the body related to bile production or bilious temperament in medieval humoral theory.
Compound of 'bile' (from Latin bilis, yellow-green fluid from the liver) and 'whit' (from Old English hwit, meaning 'creature' or 'thing'). This term emerged in medieval medical texts to describe aspects of bilious constitution.
In the Middle Ages, doctors thought your personality came from four bodily fluids called humors—if you had too much 'bile,' you were supposedly choleric and angry! Words like bilewhit show how scientific thinking was once completely different from today.
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