melancholiac
- noun
- /ˌmɛlənˈkoʊliæk/
- Archaic
:
melancólico
- Despite her cheerful demeanor, Alice often felt like a melancholiac, struggling with waves of deep sadness in her quiet moments.
Examples
-
After years of battling sadness, he finally accepted that he was a melancholiac who needed support and understanding.
-
The artist identified as a melancholiac, using her pain and sadness as inspiration for her evocative paintings.
-
The son-in-law took antidepressants and claimed to be a melancholiac, yet he always seemed upbeat, comical, ready with a laugh.
Fiction book (1992) -
It appears to be an acute epileptoid manifestation... ...and a pan phobic melancholiac with indication of a neurasthenia cordus.
Synonyms
9
8.0
A person who often seems unhappy and grumpy
1
7.5
A person who is often gloomy and stays quiet
A person who often feels deep sadness
A person who feels deep sadness after losing someone
Antonyms
How Sad
- Specialized
4
7.4
- Archaic
Surface Forms
Morphology
melancholiac = melancholy (transparent) = melancholy + iac
The meaning is directly derived from 'melancholy' + the person-denoting suffix '-iac', so a speaker knowing 'melancholy' can infer 'a person affected by melancholy'.
Etymology
Melancholiac comes from old Greek parts melan- 'black' and chole 'bile', from an old medical idea that too much 'black bile' made a person gloomy or sad. So a melancholiac is someone who is often deeply sad, like the related word melancholy.