melancholy
pronunciation
How to pronounce melancholy in British English:
UK [ˈmelənkəli]
How to pronounce melancholy in American English:
US [ˈmelənkɑːli]
-
- Noun:
- a feeling of thoughtful sadness
- a constitutional tendency to be gloomy and depressed
- a humor that was once believed to be secreted by the kidneys or spleen and to cause sadness and melancholy
-
- Adjective:
- characterized by or causing or expressing sadness
Word Origin
- melancholy
- melancholy: [14] Etymologically, melancholy means ‘black gall’. The word comes via Old French melancolie and late Latin melancholia from Greek melagkholíā, a compound formed from mélās ‘black’ (source also of English melanin [19] and melanoma [19]) and kholé ‘bile’ (a relative of English gall). This ‘black bile’ was one of the four bodily substances or ‘humours’ whose relative preponderance, according to medieval medical theory, determined a person’s physical and mental state. Excess of black bile was thought to cause depression – hence the modern meaning of melancholy.=> gall, melanoma
- melancholy (n.)
- c. 1300, "condition characterized by sullenness, gloom, irritability," from Old French melancolie "black bile, ill disposition, anger, annoyance" (13c.), from Late Latin melancholia, from Greek melankholia "sadness," literally (excess of) "black bile," from melas (genitive melanos) "black" (see melanin) + khole "bile" (see Chloe). Medieval physiology attributed depression to excess of "black bile," a secretion of the spleen and one of the body's four "humors." The Latin word also is the source of Spanish melancolia, Italian melancolia, German Melancholie, Danish melankoli, etc. Old French variant malencolie (also in Middle English) is by false association with mal "sickness."
- melancholy (adj.)
- late 14c., "with or caused by black bile; sullen, gloomy, sad," from melancholy (n.); sense of "deplorable" (of a fact or state of things) is from 1710.
Example
- 1. Actually , much of it is solemn and melancholy .
- 2. But there was always the nagging melancholy of an opportunity lost , by leaving new york too soon .
- 3. In this manner cassim 's melancholy death was concealed and hushed up between ali baba , his widow , and morgiana , his slave , with so much contrivance that nobody in the city had the least knowledge or suspicion of the cause of it .
- 4. Masturbation : an effective medicine for melancholy .
- 5. Such an idea working on his melancholy temperament produced the most gloomy effects .