melancholy

meh-LAN-kuh-lee

meaning in plain English

Picture a thick, black liquid that ancient doctors thought floated inside the body. They called that fluid melancholy because they believed it made people feel down.

Imagine a dark, sticky raincloud in your belly—melancholy is the old name for that black bile.

for example

The physician wrote that the patient’s lingering melancholy was the reason for his constant fatigue and gloomy mood.

In old medical theory, melancholy was the dark, oily stuff they said settled in the body and caused a sad feeling. Think of it as the gloomy fluid that was blamed for feeling blue.