It's the Word of the Day for May 25th.

Today's word is dyspeptic, spelled D-Y-S-P-E-P-T-I-C.

Dispeptic is an adjective.

It's a formal and old-fashioned word used to describe someone who is bad-tempered,

in other words easily annoyed or angered,

or something that shows or is characteristic of a bad temper.

The noun form of dyspeptic is dyspepsia.

Here's the word used in a sentence from the LA Times by Charles McNulty.

Statler and Waldorf from the Muppet Show made a long-running joke of dyspeptic critics.

Never once in my teenage years did I point to the TV and say,

Mom and Dad, that is what I want to be when I grow up.

If you've ever told someone or been told yourself to quit belly aching,

then you should have no trouble grocking the gastronomic origins of the word dyspeptic,

an adjective used in formal speech and writing to describe someone with a bad temper.

To wit, indigestion, that is dyspepsia, is often accompanied

by nausea, heartburn, and gas, symptoms that can turn even your cheeriest chum into a curmudgeonly

crank. So it's no wonder that dyspepsia can refer both to a sour stomach and a sour mood,

or that its adjective form, dyspeptic, can describe someone afflicted by either.

The pep in both words comes from the Greek pep-pep, based on the verb, peptine, meaning to cook,

ripen, or digest.

With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.

Visit Miriamwebster.com today for definitions, wordplay, and trending word lookups.

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