A.Word.A.Day --melancholic

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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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