Word of the Day

: May 25, 2025

dyspeptic

adjective diss-PEP-tik

What It Means

Dyspeptic is 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.

// The comedian’s shtick of delivering dyspeptic rants on the daily annoyances of modern life was enormously popular.

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dyspeptic in Context

“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.’” — Charles McNulty, The Los Angeles Times, 4 Dec. 2024

Did You Know?

If you’ve ever told someone (or been told yourself) to “quit bellyaching,” then you should have no trouble grokking the gastronomic origins of dyspeptic, an adjective used in formal speech and writing to describe someone with a bad temper. To wit, indigestion (aka 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-, base of the verb péptein meaning “to cook, ripen, or digest.”