saddish

comparative more saddish · superlative most saddish

1. informalSomewhat sad.

   […] for these when not actively employed were sometimes […] apt to fall into a saddish mood which in some partook of sullenness.

   1924, Herman Melville, chapter 1, in Billy Budd, London: Constable & Co.

   2 more examples

   He set up a little piece of poetry, which he made, himself, out of his own head—three verses—kind of sweet and saddish—the name of it was, "Yes, crush, cold world, this breaking heart"—and he left that all set up and ready to print in the paper, and didn't charge nothing for it.

   1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], “Chapter XX”, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC

   At the church sociables he used to hop around among them, chipping and chirping like a dicky-bird picking up seed; and he was a great hand to play the piano, and sing saddish, sweetish songs to them.

   1903, George Horace Lorimer, Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to his Son, page 46