melancholia
/ˌmɛlənˈkəʊlɪə
/noun [mass noun]
1A feeling of deep sadness; melancholy: the haunting melancholia that dominates the album...
- Contrasting greatly with the often-brooding melancholia of Tristeza, LaValle manages to inject an uplifting aspect into his solo work.
- Writers invariably describe the flat estuary land as ‘melancholic ‘, but that's because writers bring their melancholia with them.
- If you're not in the market for a new wall color, or you're not quite ready to risk a bout of autumnal melancholia, it's quite easy to use this deep rose as an accent, especially when you want to create a romantic, intimate mood.
1.1 dated Severe depression: he was treated for melancholia and insomnia...
- He refused to take on patients who were psychotic; that is, who were suffering from schizophrenia or from the most severe type of melancholia (depressive illness).
- Asylum doctors divided mental illness into four categories: mania (with an important subcategory, monomania), melancholia, dementia, and idiocy.
- All the identified patients had psychotic illnesses: mania and melancholia, general paresis, and post-encephalitic states.
Origin
Late Middle English (denoting black bile): from late Latin (see melancholy).