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Jun 18, 2009
This week's theme
Medicinal words to describe people

This week's words
choleric
phlegmatic
sanguine
melancholic
bilious

Four temperaments in smileys
Four temperaments in smileys
phlegmatic, choleric
sanguine, melancholic
Graphic: Noe

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

melancholic

PRONUNCIATION:
(mel-uhn-KOL-ik)

MEANING:
adjective:
1. Gloomy; wistful.
2. Saddening.
3. Of or related to melancholia.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin melancholia, from Greek melancholia (the condition of having an excess of black bile), from melan- (black) + chole (bile), ultimately from the Indo-European root ghel- (to shine) that is also the source of words such as yellow, gold, glimmer, gloaming, glimpse, glass, arsenic, and cholera.

USAGE:
"Zach Galifianakis: The only kind of music I do know how to play is melancholic, sad stuff because nothing happy is coming out of my body musically."
Kate Ward; Zach Galifianakis; Entertainment Weekly (New York); Jun 4, 2009.

See more usage examples of melancholic in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
The door of a bigoted mind opens outwards so that the only result of the pressure of facts upon it is to close it more snugly. -Ogden Nash, poet (1902-1971)

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