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Melancholy

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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Dictionaries
Charles Buck Dictionary
• Melancholy
1910 New Catholic Dictionary
• Melancholy
Webster Dictionary
• Melancholy
• Melancholious
• Melancholiness
Encyclopedias
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
• Melancholy
McClintock and Strong's Bible Encyclopedia
• Melancholy
The Nuttall Encyclopedia
• Anatomy of Melancholy

(Gr.,u€Xa-yxoXia, from pt Xas, black, and xoVi, bile), originally a condition of the mind or body due to a supposed excess of black bile, also this black bile itself, one of the chief "humours" of the body, which were, according to medieval physiology, blood, phlegm, choler and melancholy (see Humour); now a vague term for desponding grief. From the 17th century the name was used of the mental disease now known as "melancholia" (see Insanity), but without any reference to the supposed cause of it.