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. Charles Krauthammer:

   As [ Duke of ] Wellington said, ‘ nothing save a battle loss is quite so melancholy as a battle won. ’ We won the battle and now we have to watch the movie.

2. Tom Watson:

   The anticipation is getting closer and closer to my final Open championship and it's going to be a very special time, i feel maybe a little bit melancholy but the memories of all the years playing in the Open will make it pretty happy. I've had a wonderful experience playing here in the Open for these last 40 years.

3. Aristotle:

   Melancholy men are of all others the most witty.

4. Aimee Osbourne:

   It’s been a frustrating journey, a lot of trial and error. For years it felt like I was swimming in the ocean, all by Aimee Osbourne, i’ve lived through a lot of dark environments one way or another while growing up and that has influenced my songwriting. And, yes, I suppose melancholy is a running theme. [ But ] I never had to battle for my identity. I have always been me.

5. Musin Almat Zhumabekovich:

   1. The world is a library in which only the conscious becomes wiser. 2. The world of people You are in the amusement park, gloomy clown fantasy, circus themes everywhere, you feel the grin of awareness forever smiling in the soul. On you is a clown makeup of hypocrisy and a flower of laughter on your clown jacket, it sprinkles with juice and gives insight. You have in your hands a card on one part, that is, the bright side of your personality, on it another person who is a joker is mirrored. You get up from the attraction chair and get into the baby car with a motor. You see a chain carousel of disunity, a horse carousel a symbol of pride, and the fakirs show a fire show, expressing their fiery opinion. You go to the children's playroom everywhere egoists go, play an American game in which many people hold their hands for days on what they want to get. In another room of the disco foam party of life-size puppets who do not want to be themselves, eerie soap bubbles in the form of clown smiles burst with the roar of a terrible clown laugh of awareness. A ghost train travels everywhere for children who will never grow up inside, gaining adults who do not feel reality, who travel on an endless journey of infantility. History, fashion and philosophy have turned reality into a paradoxical anachronism, and morality has fallen into suspended animation here expecting better times. 3. Understanding, accepting alien worlds, your world will expand to an alternative universe. 4. The human world is a fun party in a madhouse, open your eyes - this is a fun evening party in hell. 5. Self-knowledge is a whole archeology. You can find in yourself a whole, lost civilization from a past life. This is not a known inner world that is forgotten due to problems with the outside world. 6. Reality has very gloomy humor, painted with neon luminescent paint of irony and sarcasm hints and clues lurk in them. Does he seem cruel to you? You have no sense of humor. 7. Only death can write you out of this psychiatric hospital. 8. The end of the world is the logical conclusion of human madness. 9. The world is a fun amusement park, gloomy fun reigns here, funny, black melancholy is felt in the air, laughter of madness is heard everywhere. To ride this or that attraction, your understanding and awareness should be of such growth. 10. You feel the mortal humor of reality, its lethal tin. If you cannot stop laughing, then you understand her jokes. You realize that philosophy in this fun, fun, fun hell is very deep, deep, deep shit. You see how you are attached to the rails in this house of terrible, crazy fun, and from that door, which shows a cheerful skull, you will be moved at any moment, cheerful, smiling, children's train of your madness, your fate: chuh-chuh- chuh-tu-tuuu. Yes, these rails, this is a very funny deja vu of reincarnation, in which every time a completely new joke is prepared for you. And as always, your fate, your executioner. Author: Musin Almat Zhumabekovich

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