Meaning & use
melancholy
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Meanings
noununcountableliterary
A quiet, lingering sadness, often thoughtful and without a clear cause.
Grammar: Usually uncountable: a feeling of melancholy.
Patterns
- a mood of melancholy
A gentle melancholy settled over her as autumn arrived.
He listened to the old songs with a touch of melancholy.
adjectivecomparableliterary
Feeling or showing a quiet, reflective sadness.
Grammar: Used before a noun or after a verb: a melancholy tune, the song sounds melancholy.
The melancholy music echoed through the empty hall.
She gave a melancholy smile as she packed the last box.
He felt strangely melancholy on the last day of summer.
Common combinations
- deep melancholy
- A deep melancholy followed the move.
- melancholy mood
- The rain put him in a melancholy mood.
- melancholy tune
- The violin played a melancholy tune.
- fall into melancholy
- He fell into melancholy after his friends left.
Synonyms and how they differ
- sadness
- Sadness is plainer and can be sharp or short, while melancholy is slow, soft, and reflective.
- wistfulness
- Wistfulness includes a gentle longing for something lost, which melancholy does not need.
- gloom
- Gloom is heavier and darker, with less sense of beauty in the sadness.
Opposites
Word family
- melancholic adjective
- prone to or showing melancholy
- melancholia noun
- an older word for deep, long-lasting sadness
Commonly confused: melancholy or depression?
melancholy vs depression
Depression is a medical condition lasting weeks or longer; melancholy is a mood that is often mild and passing.
Practice
Which sentence uses melancholy correctly as an adjective?
Choose one answer.
Melancholy modifies the noun song. It is not an adverb or a verb, and as a noun it cannot be followed by of the rain in that way.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “melancholy”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.