MELANCHOLY • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Melancholy

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/mˈɛlənkˌɑli/ Listen

noun

Melancholy n.

1.

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

2.

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

3.

Pensive maditation; serious thoughtfulness. (Obs.) "Hail, divinest Melancholy!"

4.

Ill nature. (Obs.)

adjective

Melancholy adj.

1.

Depressed in spirits; dejected; gloomy dismal.

2.

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

3.

Somewhat deranged in mind; having the jugment impaired. (Obs.)

4.

Favorable to meditation; somber. "A pretty, melancholy seat, well wooded and watered."

Synonyms: Gloomy; sad; dispirited; low-spirited; downhearted; unhappy; hypochondriac; disconsolate; heavy, doleful; dismal; calamitous; afflictive.

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Etymology of 'Melancholy'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Melancholy" Quotes from Famous Books

... damp wood matches cooking-fire was the whole tangle of existence. There was something pitiable in it. Perhaps this was because there is something more pathetic in a comical face grown solemn than in the most melancholy countenance ...

— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White

... Ward's regiment. In the autumn of 1775, Major Bigelow volunteered his services, with his men from Worcester, in that expedition against Quebec, alike memorable for its boldness of conception, the chivalrous daring of its execution, and its melancholy failure. During their march from Cambridge to Quebec, Major Bigelow and his noble band endured severe hardships, reduced by hunger to the necessity of eating their camp dogs, and in their last extremity, cutting their boots and shoes from their ...

— Reminiscences of the Military Life and Sufferings of Col. Timothy Bigelow, Commander of the Fifteenth Regiment of the Massachusetts Line in the Continental Army, during the War of the Revolution • Charles Hersey

... of light from the green-shaded desk-lamp beat down on the three singular exhibits. Sharlee studied them with bewilderment mixed with profound melancholy. ...

— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... for the city, it was totally sunk. Wonderful to tell! nothing but a dismal and putrid lake was seen where it stood. We looked about to find some one that could tell us of its sad catastrophe, but could see none: all was become a melancholy solitude—a scene of hideous desolations. Thus proceeding pensively along, in quest of some human being that could give us some little information, we at length saw a boy sitting by the shore, and appearing stupified with terror. Of him, therefore, we enquired ...

— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux

... illustrations of English law, but I think it will be admitted that after centuries of such law, one need not wonder if the people hold it in "hatred and contempt." With the opening of the seventeenth century, however, came a golden and glorious opportunity for ending that melancholy—that terrible state of things. In the reign of James I., English law, for the first time, extended to every corner of this kingdom. The Irish came into the new order of things frankly and in good faith; ...

— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan

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