melancholy

1. 1
   adjectiveliterary

   Weighed down by deep sadness or depression.

   Melancholy travelers sat in silence as the train crawled on through the rain.

   He grew melancholy in the long northern winters and seldom left the house.

   UsageDescribes things that carry the mood too, a melancholy song, not just people; melancholic means much the same.

   Similardepressed, dejected, downcast, despondent, downhearted

   Oppositecheerful, happy, joyful, merry

   Note

   Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida sets it against merry, melancholy without cause, which shows how long it has named a temperament as well as a passing state. Source

   Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

   • Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida contrasts melancholy with merry: Alexander says this about Ajax in Act 1, scene 2. folger.edu
   • The passage presents melancholy as part of a person's temperament. folger.edu
2. 2
   sad moodnoununcountable

   A deep sadness or depression, especially a thoughtful or inward-looking one.

   A heavy melancholy settled over him in the weeks after his father's funeral.

   Her late paintings carry a gentle melancholy that critics find hard to name.

   UsageOften a deep melancholy, a gentle melancholy, or fill someone with melancholy.

   Similarsadness, sorrow, unhappiness, depression, dejection

   Oppositehappiness, joy, cheerfulness, elation

   Note

   Once the mood was blamed on the fluid, the fluid's name became the mood. Shakespeare already uses it for a troubled mind, and in As You Like It a speaker sorts it into kinds: the scholar's, the musician's, the courtier's, the soldier's. That habit of telling melancholies apart still marks the word: it suggests a reflective, even cultivated sadness rather than plain misery. Source

   Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 4 facts

   • Sadness was historically attributed to an excess of black bile. en.wiktionary.org
   • The name melancholy derives from black bile, the supposed bodily fluid associated with the condition. en.wikipedia.org
   • Shakespeare uses melancholy for a troubled mind; York supplies an explicit example in Henry VI, Part 2, Act 5, scene 1. folger.edu
   • In Shakespeare's As You Like It, Act 4, scene 1, Jaques distinguishes the scholar's, musician's, courtier's and soldier's kinds of melancholy. internetshakespeare.uvic.ca
3. 3
   body fluidnounhistoricaluncountable

   In the old theory of the four cardinal humors, black bile, a fluid once thought to occur in animal bodies.

   The physician blamed his patient's dark moods on an excess of melancholy in the body.

   To balance the cold, dry melancholy in her body, the doctor ordered warm food and plenty of rest.

   Note

   Old medicine counted it among the four humors, with blood, phlegm and choler, and described it as cold, dry, thick and sour. The theory of humors has gone, but its vocabulary survives, and every later meaning of the word still carries the name of this fluid.

4. 4
   adjective

   Sad in effect or character: bringing on sorrow, or giving voice to it or hinting at it.

   The film ends on a melancholy note, with the two friends going their separate ways.

   Rain dripped from the eaves with a soft, melancholy sound all afternoon.

   Similarsad, mournful, wistful, somber, doleful

   Oppositecheerful, joyful, happy

   Note

   Here the sadness belongs to things rather than people: a song, a sound, an ending, a landscape. A person who feels it is described by the "sad person" meaning. The mood is gentle and reflective, not raw grief, which is why it pairs so naturally with soft, slow and note (ends on a melancholy note). It compares with more and most, never melancholier.

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