melancholy

Etymology

Recorded from c. 1300 as melancolie, malencolie.^[1] From Middle English malencolie,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French melancolie (“black bile; ill disposition”),^[1][4] from Late Latin melancholia,^[5][1] from Ancient Greek μελαγχολία (melankholía, “condition of having black bile”),^[4][6] from mélas “black” + kholḗ “bile”.^[4][5]

Ancient medicine attributed depression to an excess of black bile, one of the body's four humours.^[1][3] Compare cholera.^[1]

References

1. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] Harper, Douglas, Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
2. [1] Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. [1] [2] Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
4. [1] [2] [3] Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. [1] [2] The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Boston: Houghton Mifflin
6. [1] Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House