melancholy

Melancholy is a mood state characterized by persistent sadness, introspection, and a sense of loss or contemplative gloom. It is often described as a quiet, pensive sorrow that lingers rather than a sudden emotion. The term derives from the ancient Greek melancholia, from melas “black” and chole “bile,” a concept in humoral medicine in which an excess of black bile was believed to cause such mood. In everyday use, melancholy can refer to a temporary mood, a seasonal mood, or a more enduring temperament.

Historically, melancholy has been linked with creativity and philosophy in Western thought; poets and artists have described it as a source of depth and insight. In the 18th- to 19th-century medical framework, melancholia was treated as a major mood-related condition. Later, psychiatric frameworks distinguished major depressive disorder with melancholic features, including pervasive anhedonia, reduced reactivity to stimuli, psychomotor changes, and early morning awakening. In modern psychiatry, melancholia is now more often encountered as a specifier within depressive disorders rather than a standalone diagnosis, though the historical term remains in literature and psychology.

In culture and art, melancholy appears in music, literature, and visual arts as a mood of reflection on loss, time, and mortality. It is not synonymous with clinical depression, though severe or persistent melancholy may reflect underlying mental health concerns and can be discussed with a mental health professional. The term remains widely used to describe both emotional experience and aesthetic sensibility.