This week’s theme
Random words

This week’s words
trumped-up
stormy petrel
melancholia
pensive
huckster

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(mel-uhn-KOH-lee-uh)

MEANING:

noun: A feeling of deep sadness; depression.

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), which is also the source of words such as yellow, gold, glimmer, gloaming, glimpse, glass, arsenic, and cholera. Earliest documented use: 1398.

NOTES:

In earlier times it was believed that four humors controlled human behavior and an imbalance resulted in disease. According to this thinking, an excess of black bile secreted by the spleen resulted in melancholia or ill humor.

USAGE:

“The mood, inevitably, tends towards melancholia, but there are moments of brightness.”
Barry Divola, et al.; Music Reviews; Sydney Morning Herald (Australia); Oct 13, 2018.

See more usage examples of melancholia in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: