melancholy

plural melancholies · alternative obsolete melancholly · alternative obsolete melancholie · alternative obsolete melancholious

1. countablehistoricaluncountableBlack 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.

   1621, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy, New York: New York Review Books, published 2001, →ISBN, page 148

2. countableuncountableGreat sadness or depression, especially of a thoughtful or introspective nature.

   My mind was troubled with deep melancholy.

   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

   3 more examples

   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.

   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]

   "The ancients referred melancholy to the mind, the moderns make it matter of digestion—to either case my plan applies," said Lady Mandeville.

   1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter VI, in Romance and Reality. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 111

   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.

   1936 Sept. 15, F. Scott Fitzgerald, letter to Beatrice Dance

   Synonyms: despondency, misery, blueness, tristesse, mirthlessness, blues, crestfallenness, dejection

comparative more melancholy · superlative most melancholy · alternative obsolete melancholly · alternative obsolete melancholie · alternative obsolete melancholious

1. literaryAffected with great sadness or depression.

   Melancholy people don't talk much.

   2 more examples

   […] he is melancholy without cause, and merry against the hair: […]

   c. 1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]

   “[…] the awfully hearty sort of Christmas cards that people do send to other people that they don't know at all well. […] And then, when you see [the senders], you probably find that they are the most melancholy old folk with malignant diseases. […]”

   1921, Ben Travers, chapter 1, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC

   Synonyms: melancholic, atrabiliary, atrabilious, blitheless, dispirited, blue, bummed out, chapfallen

2. Suggestive of wistfulness or subdued emotion.

   It was the same old song / With a melancholy sound.

   1981, Greg Kihn, Steve Wright, “The Breakup Song (They Don't Write 'Em)”, in RocKihnRoll, performed by The Greg Kihn Band

   1 more example

   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.

   1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume I, London: Macmillan and Co., page 356