MELANCHOLY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does melancholy mean? 

• MELANCHOLY (noun)
  The noun MELANCHOLY has 3 senses:

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

  Familiarity information: MELANCHOLY used as a noun is uncommon.

• MELANCHOLY (adjective)
  The adjective MELANCHOLY has 2 senses:

1. characterized by or causing or expressing sadness

2. grave or even gloomy in character

  Familiarity information: MELANCHOLY used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MELANCHOLY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A feeling of thoughtful sadness

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Hypernyms ("melancholy" is a kind of...):

sadness; unhappiness (emotions experienced when not in a state of well-being)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "melancholy"):

gloom; gloominess; somberness; sombreness (a feeling of melancholy apprehension)

heavyheartedness (a feeling of dispirited melancholy)

brooding; pensiveness (persistent morbid meditation on a problem)

Weltschmerz; world-weariness (sadness on thinking about the evils of the world)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A constitutional tendency to be gloomy and depressed

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Hypernyms ("melancholy" is a kind of...):

depression (a mental state characterized by a pessimistic sense of inadequacy and a despondent lack of activity)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A humor that was once believed to be secreted by the kidneys or spleen and to cause sadness and melancholy

Classified under:

Nouns denoting body parts

Synonyms:

black bile; melancholy

Hypernyms ("melancholy" is a kind of...):

bodily fluid; body fluid; humor; humour; liquid body substance (the liquid parts of the body)

• MELANCHOLY (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Characterized by or causing or expressing sadness

Synonyms:

melancholic; melancholy

Context example:

we acquainted him with the melancholy truth

Similar:

sad (experiencing or showing sorrow or unhappiness)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Grave or even gloomy in character

Synonyms:

melancholy; somber; sombre

Context example:

a somber mood

Similar:

cheerless; depressing; uncheerful (causing sad feelings of gloom and inadequacy)

 Context examples 

There is nothing awful here, nothing melancholy, nothing grand.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

“Go on, my dear Sir! You are not unknown here, you are not unappreciated. Though “remote”, we are neither “unfriended”, “melancholy”, nor (I may add) “slow”.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

In about five minutes, however, he began to get more and more quiet, and finally sank into a sort of melancholy, in which state he has remained up to now.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

She must not make it a more decided subject of misery to him, by a melancholy tone herself.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

The man in the dressing-gown turned upon us with a most melancholy face.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I can hear him now, as I shall always hear him, the primal melancholy vibrant in his voice as he read:

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Professor Summerlee, a long, melancholy figure, walks with dragging steps and drooping head, as one who is already profoundly sorry for himself.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The wind fell, for a second, round Thornfield; but far away over wood and water, poured a wild, melancholy wail: it was sad to listen to, and I ran off again.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

He had a pleasing face and a melancholy air, just as he ought to have, and drew back from conversation.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

I ordered him to set me down, and lifting up one of my sashes, cast many a wistful melancholy look towards the sea.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)