melancholy

melancholy
    adj 1: characterized by or causing or expressing sadness;
           "growing more melancholy every hour"; "her melancholic
           smile"; "we acquainted him with the melancholy truth"
           [syn: {melancholy}, {melancholic}]
    2: grave or even gloomy in character; "solemn and mournful
       music"; "a suit of somber black"; "a somber mood" [syn:
       {somber}, {sombre}, {melancholy}]
    n 1: a feeling of thoughtful sadness
    2: a constitutional tendency to be gloomy and depressed
    3: a humor that was once believed to be secreted by the kidneys
       or spleen and to cause sadness and melancholy [syn: {black
       bile}, {melancholy}]
    

Melancholy \Mel"an*chol*y\, n. [OE. melancolie, F.
   m['e]lancolie, L. melancholia, fr. Gr. ?; me`las, me`lanos,
   black + ? gall, bile. See {Malice}, and 1st {Gall}.]
   [1913 Webster]
   1. Depression of spirits; a gloomy state continuing a
      considerable time; deep dejection; gloominess. --Shak.
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   2. Great and continued depression of spirits, amounting to
      mental unsoundness; melancholia.
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   3. Pensive maditation; serious thoughtfulness. [Obs.] "Hail,
      divinest Melancholy !" --Milton.
      [1913 Webster]

   4. Ill nature. [Obs.] --Chaucer.
      [1913 Webster]
    

Melancholy \Mel"an*chol*y\, a.
   1. Depressed in spirits; dejected; gloomy dismal. --Shak.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. Producing great evil and grief; causing dejection;
      calamitous; afflictive; as, a melancholy event.
      [1913 Webster]

   3. Somewhat deranged in mind; having the jugment impaired.
      [Obs.] --Bp. Reynolds.
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   4. Favorable to meditation; somber.
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            A pretty, melancholy seat, well wooded and watered.
                                                  --Evelin.
      [1913 Webster]

   Syn: Gloomy; sad; dispirited; low-spirited; downhearted;
        unhappy; hypochondriac; disconsolate; heavy, doleful;
        dismal; calamitous; afflictive.
        [1913 Webster]
    

193 Moby Thesaurus words for "melancholy":
      absorption, abstraction, aching heart, agony, agony of mind,
      anguish, atrabiliar, atrabilious, bale, beetle-browed, bitterness,
      black, black-browed, blase, bleeding heart, blue, blues, boredness,
      boredom, bouderie, broken heart, brown study, cheerless,
      cheerlessness, close study, concentration, contemplativeness,
      crestfallen, crushing, dark, deep thought, dejected, dejectedness,
      dejection, depressed, depressing, depression, depth of misery,
      desolation, despair, desperation, despondency, despondent,
      discomposing, disconsolate, disconsolateness, dismal, dispirited,
      dispiritedness, disquieting, disturbing, doleful, dolor, dolorous,
      dour, downcast, downhearted, downheartedness, dreary, dumpish,
      dumpishness, dumps, engrossment, ennui, extremity, fed-up,
      fed-upness, forlorn, frowning, funereal, funky, gentle melancholy,
      gloom, gloominess, gloomy, glowering, glum, glumness,
      good and tired, grief, grim, grimness, grum, grumness, heartache,
      heartbroken, heavy heart, heavyhearted, heavyheartedness,
      infelicity, irked, jaded, jadedness, joyless, lachrymose,
      lamentable, life-weariness, life-weary, low, low-spirited,
      lowering, lugubrious, lugubriousness, melancholia, melancholic,
      melancholiness, miserable, miserableness, misery, moanful,
      moodiness, moodish, moodishness, moody, mopey, moping, mopish,
      mopishness, morose, moroseness, mournful, mournfulness, mumpish,
      musing, pensive, pensiveness, perturbing, plaintive, preoccupation,
      profound thought, prostration, reflective, reflectiveness, reverie,
      romantic melancholy, rueful, sad, saddened, saddening, sadness,
      satiated, satiation, satiety, scowling, sick, sick of, somber,
      sombrous, sorrow, sorrowful, sorrowfulness, sorry, speculativeness,
      spleen, splenetic, study, suicidal despair, sulkiness, sulky,
      sullen, sullenness, surliness, surly, taedium vitae, tedium,
      thoughtful, thoughtfulness, tired, tired of, tired of living,
      tired to death, tiredness, triste, tristful, tristfulness,
      unhappiness, unhappy, wailful, wearied, weariful, wearifulness,
      weariness, weary, weary unto death, wistful, wistfulness, woe,
      woebegone, woeful, woefulness, world-weariness, world-weary,
      wretchedness