melancholia
noun
Susan WoodBrooke AllenRalph NovakTom McCarthy
Did you know?
When is a word full of humor yet far from humorous? Melancholia traces back to Greek melan- ("black, dark") and cholē ("bile"). Medical practitioners once adhered to the system of humors—bodily fluids that included black bile, yellow bile, blood, and phlegm. An imbalance of these humors was thought to lead to disorders of the mind and body. One suffering from an excess of black bile (believed to be secreted by the kidneys or spleen) could become sullen, unsociable, and liable to depression. Today, doctors no longer ascribe physical and mental disorders to disruptions of the four humors, but the word melancholia is still used in psychiatry as a general term for despondency.
Examples of melancholia in a Sentence
Nicholas Quah, Vulture, 26 Oct. 2024
In this unorthodox history, Moon, a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, casts aside the traditional, heroic portrait of the English ceramicist and entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood and envisions the potter as a symbol of Britain’s post-colonial melancholia.
—The New Yorker, 5 Feb. 2024
Harnessing Nordic melancholia to laugh at the misery of capitalist malaise, Finnish master Aki Kaurismäki makes movies about people who don’t say much but feel plenty.
—Carlos Aguilar, Los Angeles Times, 22 Nov. 2023
The glimpse of her life as a mother and her melancholia come into play later in the show’s run.
—Yvonne Villarreal, Los Angeles Times, 13 Oct. 2023
See all Example Sentences for melancholia 
Dictionary Entries Near melancholia
Cite this Entry
“Melancholia.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/melancholia. Accessed 30 Nov. 2024.
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melancholia
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melancholia
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