Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Melancholy
Mel′an-chol-y
,Noun.
1.
Depression of spirits; a gloomy state continuing a considerable time; deep dejection; gloominess.
Shak.
2.
Great and continued depression of spirits, amounting to mental unsoundness; melancholia.
3.
Pensive maditation; serious thoughtfulness.
[Obs.]
“Hail, divinest Melancholy !” Milton.
4.
Ill nature.
[Obs.]
Chaucer.
Mel′an-chol-y
,Adj.
1.
Depressed in spirits; dejected; gloomy dismal.
Shak.
2.
Producing great evil and grief; causing dejection; calamitous; afflictive;
as, a
. melancholy
event3.
Somewhat deranged in mind; having the jugment impaired.
[Obs.]
Bp. Reynolds.
4.
Favorable to meditation; somber.
A pretty,
melancholy
seat, well wooded and watered. Evelin.
Syn. – Gloomy; sad; dispirited; low-spirited; downhearted; unhappy; hypochondriac; disconsolate; heavy, doleful; dismal; calamitous; afflictive.
Webster 1828 Edition
Melancholy
MEL'ANCHOLY
,Noun.
1.
A gloomy state of mind, often a gloomy state that is of some continuance, or habitual; depression of spirits induced by grief; dejection of spirits. This was formerly supposed to proceed from a redundance of black bile. Melancholy, when extreme and of long continuance, is a disease, sometimes accompanied with partial insanity. Cullen defines it, partial insanity without dyspepsy.In nosology, mental-alienation restrained to a single object or train of ideas, in distinction from mania, in which the alienation is general.
Moon-struck madness, moping melancholy.
MEL'ANCHOLY
,Adj.
1.
Dismal; gloomy; habitually dejected; as a melancholy temper.2.
Calamitous; afflictive; that may or does produce great evil and grief; as a melancholy event. The melancholy fate of the Albion! The melancholy destruction of Scio and of Missolonghi!Definition 2024
melancholy
melancholy
English
Adjective
melancholy (comparative more melancholy, superlative most melancholy)
- Affected with great sadness or depression.
- Melancholy people don't talk much.
- 1922, Ben Travers, chapter 1, in A Cuckoo in the Nest:
- “[…] the awfully hearty sort of Christmas cards that people do send to other people that they don't know at all well. You know. The kind that have mottoes […] . And then, when you see [the senders], you probably find that they are the most melancholy old folk with malignant diseases. […]”
Synonyms
- (thoughtful sadness): wistful, melancholic
- See also Wikisaurus:sad
Translations
Affected with sadness or depression
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Noun
melancholy (countable and uncountable, plural melancholies)
- (historical) Black bile, formerly thought to be one of the four "cardinal humours" of animal bodies.
- 1621, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, Bk.I, New York 2001, p.148:
- 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, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, Bk.I, New York 2001, p.148:
- Great sadness or depression, especially of a thoughtful or introspective nature.
- 1593, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, V. i. 34:
- My mind was troubled with deep melancholy.
- 1599, William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act IV, Scene 1,
- 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.
- 1593, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, V. i. 34:
Translations
Sadness or depression
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