melancholy
noun
- a feeling of sadness matched with deep thought or reflection
adjective
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L338354 on Wikidata ↗Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ˈmɛlənkəli/ / /ˈmɛl.ənˌkɑ.li/
adj
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”)), referring to the humour which ancient Hippocratic and later Galenic medicine associated with sadness and despondency. 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.
- Affected with great sadness or depression.
“Melancholy people don't talk much.”
“[…] he is melancholy without cause, and merry against the hair: […]”
- Suggestive of wistfulness or subdued emotion.
“Twice a day she took them out to feed in the marshy places, let them waddle and gobble for an hour or two, and then drove them back and shut them up in a small dark shed to digest their meal, whence they gave forth occasionally a melancholy quack.”
“It was the same old song / With a melancholy sound.”
noun
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”)), referring to the humour which ancient Hippocratic and later Galenic medicine associated with sadness and despondency. 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.
- Black bile, formerly thought to be one of the four "cardinal humours" of animal bodies.
“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.
“My mind was troubled with deep melancholy.”
“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.”