Melancholiac

Part of speech: noun, adjective

Definitions

1. A person who regularly shows a deep-seated sorrow and contemplative despair
2. An individual marked by persistent sadness and reflective gloom
3. One who experiences ongoing sorrow accompanied by thoughtful despondency

Etymology: The Greek physicians of antiquity explained moods through bodily fluids, and the word traces back to that system. Its ancestor, Greek "melankholia," was built from "melas" (black) and "chole" (bile), so it named an excess of black bile, the humour thought to cause gloom. Greek writers applied the adjective "melankholikos" to people of that atrabilious temperament, meaning sluggish, brooding, or prone to dark moods, and Latin borrowed it as "melancholicus." English "melancholiac" is the noun-and-adjective form built on the older "melancholic" by adding the suffix "-ac," which is the same ending found in "maniac," and it names a person marked by persistent gloom. The base word itself is the Greek formation, so the modern sense of sadness is a narrowed version of the original medical claim about bile.