Definitions for melancholy
ˈmɛl ənˌkɒl imelan·choly

Princeton's WordNet(5.00 / 2 votes)Rate this definition:

1. melancholy(noun)

   a feeling of thoughtful sadness

2. melancholy(noun)

   a constitutional tendency to be gloomy and depressed

3. black bile, melancholy(adj)

   a humor that was once believed to be secreted by the kidneys or spleen and to cause sadness and melancholy

4. melancholy, melancholic(adj)

   characterized by or causing or expressing sadness

   "growing more melancholy every hour"; "her melancholic smile"; "we acquainted him with the melancholy truth"

5. somber, sombre, melancholy(adj)

   grave or even gloomy in character

   "solemn and mournful music"; "a suit of somber black"; "a somber mood"

Wiktionary(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. melancholy(Noun)

   Black bile, formerly thought to be one of the four "cardinal humours" of animal bodies.

   Etymology: From μελαγχολία, from μέλας, μελαν- + χολή. Compare the Latin atra bilis.

2. melancholy(Noun)

   Great sadness or depression, especially of a thoughtful or introspective nature.

   Etymology: From μελαγχολία, from μέλας, μελαν- + χολή. Compare the Latin atra bilis.

3. melancholy(Adjective)

   Affected with great sadness or depression.

   Etymology: From μελαγχολία, from μέλας, μελαν- + χολή. Compare the Latin atra bilis.

Webster Dictionary(5.00 / 1 vote)Rate this definition:

1. Melancholy(noun)

   depression of spirits; a gloomy state continuing a considerable time; deep dejection; gloominess

   Etymology: [OE. melancolie, F. mlancolie, L. melancholia, fr. Gr. ; me`las, me`lanos, black + gall, bile. See Malice, and 1st Gall.]

2. Melancholy(noun)

   great and continued depression of spirits, amounting to mental unsoundness; melancholia

   Etymology: [OE. melancolie, F. mlancolie, L. melancholia, fr. Gr. ; me`las, me`lanos, black + gall, bile. See Malice, and 1st Gall.]

3. Melancholy(noun)

   pensive maditation; serious thoughtfulness

   Etymology: [OE. melancolie, F. mlancolie, L. melancholia, fr. Gr. ; me`las, me`lanos, black + gall, bile. See Malice, and 1st Gall.]

4. Melancholy(noun)

   ill nature

   Etymology: [OE. melancolie, F. mlancolie, L. melancholia, fr. Gr. ; me`las, me`lanos, black + gall, bile. See Malice, and 1st Gall.]

5. Melancholy(adj)

   depressed in spirits; dejected; gloomy dismal

   Etymology: [OE. melancolie, F. mlancolie, L. melancholia, fr. Gr. ; me`las, me`lanos, black + gall, bile. See Malice, and 1st Gall.]

6. Melancholy(adj)

   producing great evil and grief; causing dejection; calamitous; afflictive; as, a melancholy event

   Etymology: [OE. melancolie, F. mlancolie, L. melancholia, fr. Gr. ; me`las, me`lanos, black + gall, bile. See Malice, and 1st Gall.]

7. Melancholy(adj)

   somewhat deranged in mind; having the jugment impaired

   Etymology: [OE. melancolie, F. mlancolie, L. melancholia, fr. Gr. ; me`las, me`lanos, black + gall, bile. See Malice, and 1st Gall.]

8. Melancholy(adj)

   favorable to meditation; somber

   Etymology: [OE. melancolie, F. mlancolie, L. melancholia, fr. Gr. ; me`las, me`lanos, black + gall, bile. See Malice, and 1st Gall.]

Chambers 20th Century Dictionary(4.00 / 1 vote)Rate this definition:

1. Melancholy

   mel′an-kol-i, n. continued depression of spirits: dejection: a gloomy state of mind causing groundless fears: (Milt.) pensiveness.—adj. gloomy: producing grief.—n. Melanchō′lia, a form of insanity, in which there is continued depression or pain of mind.—adjs. Melanchol′ic, Melanchō′lious, affected with, or caused by, melancholy: dejected: mournful. [Through Fr.,—L.,—Gr. melancholia—melan, black, cholē, bile.]

Editors Contribution(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. melancholy

   You describe something that you see or hear as melancholy when it gives you an intense feeling of sadness. If someone feels or looks melancholy, they feel or look very sad.sadness that lasts for a long period of time, often without any obvious reason.feeling or expressing sadness;a feeling of sadness and of being without hope;Sadness and unhappiness,depression,grief;A feeling or spell of dismally low spirits:blues, dejection, despondence, despondency, doldrums, dolefulness, downheartedness, dumps, dysphoria, funk, gloom, glumness, heavy-heartedness, mope (used in plural), mournfulness,unhappiness.In low spirits:blue,depressed, desolate, dispirited, down, downcast, downhearted, dull, dysphoric, gloomy, heavy-hearted, low, melancholic,spiritless, tristful, unhappy, wistful.suggestive or expressive of sadness or depression of mind or spirit; causing or tending to cause sadness or depression of mind or spirit : DISMAL; depressed in spirits : DEJECTED, SAD;blue devils,desolation, despond,disconsolateness, dispiritedness,dreariness, down in the dumps (informal), forlornness,gloominess, heartsickness, joylessness, miserableness, mopes,oppression,sorrowfulness;Idiom: down at the mouth.Tending to cause sadness or low spirits:blue, cheerless, depressing,dispiriting,joyless,down,miserable, moody,sombre, woeful, glum, mournful,despondent,lugubrious, pensive, sorrowful, disconsolate,doleful, heavy-hearted, woebegone, down in the mouth, low-spirited depression, misery,sorrow, woe, the hump (Brit. informal),low spirits,pensiveness,a gloomy state of mind, especially when habitual or prolonged;sober thoughtfulness;affected with, characterized by, or showing melancholy;depressed,causing melancholy or sadness; saddening;soberly thoughtful;Great sadness or depression, especially of a thoughtful or introspective nature.

   Somber and laconic can be eliminated right away—there are too many exclamation points for the work to be melancholy and laid back in the way those words suggest.

   Submitted by anonymous on June 14, 2020  

How to pronounce melancholy?

1. Alex

   US English

   Daniel

   British

   Karen

   Australian

   Veena

   Indian

How to say melancholy in sign language?

Numerology

1. Chaldean Numerology

   The numerical value of melancholy in Chaldean Numerology is: 1

2. Pythagorean Numerology

   The numerical value of melancholy in Pythagorean Numerology is: 9

Examples of melancholy in a Sentence

1. Henry van Dyke:

   Who can explain the secret pathos of Nature's loveliness? It is a touch of melancholy inherited from our mother Eve. It is an unconscious memory of the lost Paradise. It is the sense that even if we should find another Eden, we would not be fit to enjoy it perfectly nor stay in it forever.

2. Anatole France:

   All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves we must die to one life before we can enter another.

3. Abraham Myerson:

   Society expects man to be a passive social animal who believes like the People of the Field in "Jurgen" that "to do what you always have done" and "what is expected of you" are the twin rules of life. This, is course, is not true. The wanton crucifixion of impulses, the unnecessary blocking and frustration of the drives and urges, are an evil that reflects itself in sophistication, ennui and boredom, dissatisfaction, melancholy, fatigue, anxiety and neurosis.

4. Charles Dickens, Bleak House:

   It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relations.

5. François Fénelon:

   Do not make best friends with a melancholy sad soul. They always are heavily loaded, and you must bear half.

Images & Illustrations of melancholy

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