melancholy means affected with great sadness or depression. It carries an Arena rating of 1932, earned across 50 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, melancholy ranks #100 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #126 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #1,036 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #1,076 of 17,104 for Most Storied Words.
melancholy is pronounced /ˈmɛlənkəli/.
Why “melancholy” is a great word
A deep, thoughtful, and introspective sadness, historically the bodily humor 'black bile.' From Middle English malencolie, from Old French melancolie, from Ancient Greek μελαγχολία (melankholía), from μέλας (mélas, "black, dark") + χολή (kholḗ, "bile"), literally "black bile," the humor associated with despondency in ancient medicine. Unlike "depression," which implies a clinical paralysis, or "sorrow," which is a sharp wound of recent loss, melancholy is a soft, chronic ache with a patina of thought. It is the weight of a book left open at a favorite passage, the minor-key strain heard beneath a merry tune, or the scent of old paper in a sunless library—the quiet understanding that to feel the passing of things is to be most fully alive.
Etymology
From Middle English malencolie, from Old French melancolie, from Ancient Greek μελαγχολία (melankholía, “atrabiliousness”) (from μέλας (mélas), μελαν- (melan-, “black, dark, murky”) + χολή (kholḗ, “bile”)), referring to the humour which ancient Hippocratic and later Galenic medicine associated with sadness and despondency. Compare the Latin ātra bīlis (“black bile”). The adjectival use is a Middle English innovation, perhaps influenced by the suffixes -y, -ly. Doublet of melancholia.
adj
- Affected with great sadness or depression.e.g.“Melancholy people don't talk much.”
- Suggestive of wistfulness or subdued emotion.
noun
- Black bile, formerly thought to be one of the four "cardinal humours" of animal bodies.e.g.“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.” — , Bk.I, New York 2001, p.148
- Great sadness or depression, especially of a thoughtful or introspective nature.e.g.“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[w
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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