melancholy
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Middle English malencolie, from Old French melancolie, from Ancient Greek μελαγχολία (melankholía, “atrabiliousness”), from μέλας (mélas), μελαν- (melan-, “black, dark, murky”) + χολή (kholḗ, “bile”). Compare the Latin ātra bīlis (“black bile”).
Pronunciation[edit]
Adjective[edit]
melancholy (comparative more melancholy, superlative most melancholy)
- (literary) Affected with great sadness or depression.
- Melancholy people don't talk much.
- 1922, Ben Travers, chapter 1, in A Cuckoo in the Nest[1]:
- “[…] the awfully hearty sort of Christmas cards that people do send to other people that they don't know at all well. You know. The kind that have mottoes […] . And then, when you see [the senders], you probably find that they are the most melancholy old folk with malignant diseases. […]”
Synonyms[edit]
- (thoughtful sadness): melancholic
- See also Thesaurus:sad
Translations[edit]
Affected with sadness or depression
Noun[edit]
melancholy (countable and uncountable, plural melancholies)
- (historical) Black bile, formerly thought to be one of the four "cardinal humours" of animal bodies.
- 1621, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy, Oxford: Printed by Iohn Lichfield and Iames Short, for Henry Cripps, OCLC 216894069; The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd corrected and augmented edition, Oxford: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, 1624, OCLC 54573970:, Bk.I, New York 2001, p.148:
- Melancholy, cold and dry, thick, black, and sour, […] is a bridle to the other two hot humours, blood and choler, preserving them in the blood, and nourishing the bones.
- Great sadness or depression, especially of a thoughtful or introspective nature.
- 1593, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, V. i. 34:
- My mind was troubled with deep melancholy.
- 1599, William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act IV, Scene 1,[2]
- I have neither the scholar’s melancholy, which is emulation; nor the musician’s, which is fantastical; nor the courtier’s, which is proud; nor the soldier’s, which is ambitious; nor the lawyer’s, which is politic; nor the lady’s, which is nice; nor the lover’s, which is all these; but it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and, indeed, the sundry contemplation of my travels; in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous sadness.
- 1593, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, V. i. 34:
Translations[edit]
Sadness or depression
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Related terms[edit]
Categories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
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