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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
melancholic
adjective
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ He seemed burdened with melancholic thoughts and dark visions as he wrestled with his pursuing demons.
▪ Her thoughts were sad and for once she didn't try to correct their melancholic turn.
▪ I mean, would a melancholic woman order everyone to leave her?
▪ She's in a slightly melancholic and therefore honest mood Jeremy Which is why we have to round it up now.
▪ The melancholic king and his lustful comic consort are out of love, but not so Peter and Emilia.
▪ The air is dull gold with the past, a sad, melancholic silver gilt which colours the mood of city.
▪ This was, unusually for Coronation Street, a duet, and profoundly melancholic.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Melancholic

Melancholic \Mel"an*chol`ic\, a. [L. melancholicus, Gr. ?: cf. F. m['e]lancholique.] Given to melancholy; depressed; melancholy; dejected; unhappy.

Just as the melancholic eye Sees fleets and armies in the sky.
--Prior.

Melancholic

Melancholic \Mel"an*chol`ic\, n. [Obs.]

  1. One affected with a gloomy state of mind.
    --J. Spenser.

  2. A gloomy state of mind; melancholy.
    --Clarendon.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
melancholic

late 14c., from melancholy + -ic, or else from Late Latin melancholicus, from Greek melankholikos "choleric," from melankholia “sadness” (see melancholy). As a noun, from 1580s. Earlier adjective formation was melancholian (mid-14c.), and melancholiac (mid-19c.) also was tried.

Wiktionary
melancholic

a. Filled with or affected by melancholy—great sadness or depression, especially of a thoughtful or introspective nature. n. A person who is habitually melancholy.

WordNet
melancholic
  1. adj. characterized by or causing or expressing sadness; "growing more melancholy every hour"; "her melancholic smile"; "we acquainted him with the melancholy truth" [syn: melancholy]

  2. n. someone subject to melancholia [syn: melancholiac]

Usage examples of "melancholic".

To-day you shall have her look as clear and fresh as the morning, and to-morrow as melancholic as midnight.

But here is an instrument that alone is able to infuse soul into the most melancholic and dull-disposed creature upon earth.

Missing Persons becomes the permanent state of mind of the melancholic main character.

He was the most famous melancholic in Europe, and employed a dozen doctors of several nations and schools, listening to all and to none, and always ready to hear others.

Yet beneath the ritual sounds of Soviet rejoicing there was a softer, more melancholic voice - the carefully concealed voice of satire and dissent only audible to those who had felt the suffering his music expressed.

For what is earth but cold and dry: a metaphor for the melancholic humor that prevails in these vampires.

Many a wiser man than I had been mystified by dyspepsia and melancholic vapours.

The heavier melancholic elements in the blood sink, making the top lighter and the bottom darker.

I discovered that, in only a brief space of time, the atmosphere of Oxford had settled on me, rendering me as melancholic as most of its inhabitants.

Instead, I tidied up my room with methodical precision, added the papers to my collection under the floorboards, and thus occupied my body in useless tasks while my mind resumed its melancholic reverie.

The melancholic expression in her eyes a few minutes ago still worried him.

Tebrick, for as he had been beastly, merry and a very dare-devil the night before, so on his awakening was he ashamed, melancholic and a true penitent before his Creator.

Their son, Jeremy, took for his first wife a delicate, melancholic girl, who matured into a sad-eyed woman, and bore him two children, Malachi and Silence.

His dark, melancholic aspect contrasted with his seemingly cheerful creed, and was all the more striking, as the worthy Dr.

Hamlet was not overly melancholic after the opening scene, Gertrude was wonderfully lascivious, old Claudius was a bit more sympathetic than usual.