saturnine

/ˈsætərˌnɑɪn/

Other forms: saturninely

Medieval alchemists ascribed to the planet Saturn a gloomy and slow character. When people are called saturnine, it means they are like the planet — gloomy, mean, scowling. Not exactly the life of the party.

Saturnine is a word you don't hear often nowadays, though you probably know people with saturnine dispositions. The ultimate saturnine character in literature is Heathcliff — and for clarification's sake, that would be the bitter, brooding, obsessive hero of Wuthering Heights, not the lovably pudgy cat of comic-strip fame.

Definitions of saturnine

1. adjective

   bitter or scornful
   “"the face was saturnine and swarthy, and the sensual lips...twisted with disdain"- Oscar Wilde”

   synonyms:

   sarcastic

   expressing or expressive of ridicule that wounds
2. adjective

   showing a brooding ill humor
   “"a saturnine, almost misanthropic young genius"- Bruce Bliven”

   synonyms: dark, dour, glowering, glum, moody, morose, sour, sullen

   ill-natured

   having an irritable and unpleasant disposition