Etymology

melancholia

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Today it means: Deep sadness or gloom; melancholy Full definition →

Late Latin melancholia
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The story

  1. Late Latin · derived frommelancholia
  2. English todaymelancholia

From Late Latin melancholia, which was in turn borrowed from the Ancient Greek medical term μελαγχολία (melankholía, “blackness of the bile”) (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. Doublet of melancholy.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.