• (British) IPA: /ˈmelənkəli/
• (America) IPA: /ˈmɛl.ənˌkɑl.i/

melancholy

1. (literary) Affected with great sadness or depression.

   Melancholy people don't talk much.

• (thoughtful sadness) melancholic
• See also Thesaurus:sad

melancholy

1. (historical) Black bile, formerly thought to be one of the four "cardinal humours" of animal bodies.
   • 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, OCLC 54573970 ↗:

     , 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.

2. 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.

• French: mélancolie
• German: Melancholie, Schwermut, Wehmut
• Italian: malinconia
• Portuguese: melancolia
• Russian: меланхо́лия
• Spanish: melancolía

• melancholic
• sadness
• melancholia