Cultural Note
In humoral medicine one did not feel sad; one was overrun by a substance. The word preserves an entire theory of the body.
Melancholy
/ˈmɛlənkɒli/ · noun
A pensive, thoughtful sadness.
- Present
- 14th c.
- 12th c.
- 2nd c.
- 5th c. BCE
Preserved Worldview
Before it was a mood it was a fluid. Greek physicians located sorrow in the body, in a dark bile brewed by the spleen.
Meaning Evolution
- 5th c. BCEmelas (black) + kholē (bile)↓
- 2nd c.A humoral illness of dark bile↓
- 12th c.The disease of black bile↓
- 14th c.Ill temper caused by excess of black bile↓
- PresentQuiet, contemplative sadness
Philosophical Note
Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) still treats the mood as half-chemical, half-cosmic — a bridge from bile to mood.
Cognates
- choleric
- cholera
- phlegmatic
Descendants
- melancholic
- melancholia
Source Notes
- · Hippocratic Corpus
- · Burton (1621)
- · Liddell & Scott