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melancholiac

[mel-uh n-koh-lee-ak]
adjective
  1. affected with melancholia.
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noun
  1. a person who is affected with melancholia.
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Origin of melancholiac

First recorded in 1860–65; melancholi(a) + -ac
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for melancholiac

Historical Examples

  • He remembered one of those men in the islands who had become a melancholiac.

    The Law of Hemlock Mountain

    Hugh Lundsford

  • A saint in ecstasy is as motionless and irresponsive and one-idea'd as a melancholiac.

    A Book of Exposition

    Homer Heath Nugent

  • But, Carley, you are not a sentimentalist, or a melancholiac.

  • A man subjected long to that soul-cramping stress, with no outlet or abatement, would have become a melancholiac.

    The Tempering

    Charles Neville Buck

  • His attitude toward them is that of the paranoiac, vindictive, rather than that of the melancholiac, humiliated.

Word Origin and History for melancholiac

n.

1863, from melancholy. Earlier in same sense was melancholian (mid-14c.).

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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper