melancholy
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈmɛlənkəli/
ipa: /ˈmɛl.ənˌkɑ.li/
Forms: form: melancholies
form: melancholly
form: melancholie
form: melancholious
Etymology: 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”). The adjectival use is a Middle English innovation, perhaps influenced by the suffixes -y, -ly. Doublet of melancholia.
Senses: examples: text: 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.
ref: , Bk.I, New York 2001, p.148
glosses: Black bile, formerly thought to be one of the four "cardinal humours" of animal bodies.
examples: text: My mind was troubled with deep melancholy.
ref: 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i], line 34:
text: 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.
ref: c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:
text: "The ancients referred melancholy to the mind, the moderns make it matter of digestion—to either case my plan applies," said Lady Mandeville.
ref: 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter VI, in Romance and Reality. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 111:
text: As to Ernest... He is quite as nervously broken down as I am but it manifests itself in different ways. His inclination is towards megalomania and mine towards melancholy.
ref: 1936 Sept. 15, F. Scott Fitzgerald, letter to Beatrice Dance
synonyms: word: despondency
word: misery
word: blueness
word: mirthless
word: blues
word: crestfallenness
word: dejection
word: depression
word: despondency
word: distress
word: dolefulness
word: downheartedness
word: drearihead
word: forlornness
word: grief
word: heartsore
word: ill-being
word: infelicity
word: melancholia
word: melancholy
word: misery
word: mishappiness
word: mourn
word: prosternation
word: regret
word: rue
word: ruth
word: sadness
word: sorrow
word: sorrowfulness
word: tristfulness
word: undelight
word: unhappiness
word: woe
word: woefare
word: wretchedness
glosses: Great sadness or depression, especially of a thoughtful or introspective nature.
Derived terms: melancholily
melancholiness
melancholist
melancholize
melancholy thistle
solemncholy
unmelancholy