Mind & EmotionGreek → English
Melancholy
/ˈmɛlənkɑːli/noun
A deep, settled sadness, often without an obvious cause.
The Greek roots
μέλας
mélas
black, dark
χολή
cholḗ
bile
Literally: “black bile”
The story of the word
Four humours ran through ancient medicine, and μέλαινα χολή, black bile, was the cold dry one; a surplus made you μελαγχολικός. English borrowed the word in the fourteenth century as a physical diagnosis, and it stayed medical long enough for Robert Burton to publish six hundred pages on it in 1621. Only afterwards did it soften into a mood a person might half enjoy.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- 14th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
choleracholericmelaninmelanoma
In a sentence
A grey November melancholy settled over the office and nobody fought it.