melancholy
Americannoun
-
a gloomy state of mind, especially when habitual or prolonged; depression.
- Synonyms:
- despondency, dejection, sadness
-
sober thoughtfulness; pensiveness.
- Synonyms:
- seriousness
-
Archaic.
-
the condition of having too much black bile, considered in ancient and medieval medicine to cause gloominess and depression.
-
black bile.
-
adjective
-
affected with, characterized by, or showing melancholy; mournful; depressed.
a melancholy mood.
- Synonyms:
- downcast, glum, doleful, dismal, sorrowful, dispirited, blue, despondent, gloomy
-
causing melancholy or sadness; saddening.
a melancholy occasion.
- Antonyms:
- happy
-
soberly thoughtful; pensive.
- Synonyms:
- serious
noun
-
a constitutional tendency to gloominess or depression
-
a sad thoughtful state of mind; pensiveness
-
archaic
-
a gloomy character, thought to be caused by too much black bile
-
one of the four bodily humours; black bile See humour
-
adjective
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of melancholy
First recorded in 1275–1325; Middle English melancholie, from Late Latin melancholia, from Greek melancholía ”condition of having black bile,” equivalent to melan- “black” + chol(ḗ) “bile, gall” + -ia noun suffix; see origin at melan(o)-, chol-, -ia
Explanation
Melancholy is beyond sad: as a noun or an adjective, it's a word for the gloomiest of spirits. Being melancholy means that you're overcome in sorrow, wrapped up in sorrowful thoughts. The word started off as a noun for deep sadness, from a rather disgusting source. Back in medieval times, people thought that secretions of the body called "humors" determined their feelings, so a depressed person was thought to have too much of the humor known as melancholy — literally "black bile" secreted from the spleen. Fortunately, we no longer think we're ruled by our spleens, and that black bile has been replaced by another color of sorrow: the "blues."
Vocabulary lists containing melancholy
"The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe
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I Am Malala
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Essential Academic Vocabulary for High School Students, List 3
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Tarr also brought to the screen an adaptation of the writer's 1989 novel "The Melancholy of Resistance", also set in a desolate communist-era location, in his 2000 film "Werckmeister Harmonies".
From Barron's • Oct. 9, 2025
His follow-up, “The Melancholy of Resistance,” published in 1989, places the reader in a similar uneasy and apocalyptic world.
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 9, 2025
It stars a pair of young women in battle with a supernatural villain named Mr. Melancholy.
From Seattle Times • May 1, 2024
Based on the novel “The Melancholy of Resistance,” by Laszlo Krasznahorkai, it was his first opera written to a Hungarian libretto.
From New York Times • Mar. 28, 2024
Melancholy held me hostage and the bees built a hive of sadness in my soul.
From "Chains" by Laurie Halse Anderson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
