different between crestfallen vs melancholy

English

Etymology

From crest +? fallen, from the appearance of a horse with its crest (head) on its chest after defeat in a battle

Pronunciation

• (UK): IPA^(key): /?k??stf??l?n/
• (US): IPA^(key): /?k??stf?l?n/
• (cot-caught merger, Inland Northern American): IPA^(key): /?k??stf?l?n/

Adjective

crestfallen (comparative more crestfallen, superlative most crestfallen)

1. Sad because of a recent disappointment.
2. Depressed.
3. (obsolete, of a horse) Having the crest, or upper part of the neck, hanging to one side.

Quotations

• 1876 — Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, ch. XII

  Tom's cheeks burned. He gathered himself up and sneaked off, crushed and crestfallen.

• 1887 — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet, ch. VI

  "'...You remember the hat beside the dead man?'
  'Yes,' said Holmes; 'by John Underwood and Sons, 129, Camberwell Road.'
  Gregson looked quite crestfallen.
  'I had no idea that you noticed that,'he said. "Have you been there?'
  'No.'"

• 1897 — H. G. Wells, The Invisible Man, ch. 12

  Hall tried to convey everything by grimaces and dumb show, but Mrs. Hall was obdurate. She raised her voice. So Hall and Henfrey, rather crestfallen, tiptoed back to the bar, gesticulating to explain to her.

• 1908 — Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, ch. 6

  'He did it awfully well,' said the crestfallen Rat.

• 1946 — Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi, ch. 15

  I rushed there; no lamp! Crestfallen, I returned to my guru.

• 2010 — Pseudonymous Bosch, This Isn't What It Looks Like, ch. -3

  Yes, unfortunately, she'd heard him correctly. She was crestfallen. Here she'd come so far to ask him the question, and he didn't know the answer.

Synonyms

• (sad because of a recent disappointment): disappointed, disillusioned
• (depressed): blue, dejected, despondent, depressed, downcast, down in the dumps, sorrowful

Derived terms

• crest-fall
• crestfallenly
• crestfallenness

Translations

English

Alternative forms

• melancholly, melancholie, melancholious (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English malencolie, from Old French melancolie, from Ancient Greek ?????????? (melankholía, “atrabiliousness”), from ????? (mélas), ?????- (melan-, “black, dark, murky”) + ???? (khol?, “bile”). Compare the Latin ?tra b?lis (“black bile”). The adjectival use is a Middle English innovation, perhaps influenced by the suffixes -y, -ly.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?mel?nk?li/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?m?l.?n?k?l.i/

Noun

melancholy (countable and uncountable, plural melancholies)

1. (historical) Black bile, formerly thought to be one of the four "cardinal humours" of animal bodies.
   • , Bk.I, New York 2001, p.148:

     Melancholy, cold and dry, thick, black, and sour, […] is a bridle to the other two hot humours, blood and choler, preserving them in the blood, and nourishing the bones.

2. Great sadness or depression, especially of a thoughtful or introspective nature.
   • 1593, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, V. i. 34:

     My mind was troubled with deep melancholy.

   • 1599, William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act IV, Scene 1,^[1]

     I have neither the scholar’s melancholy, which is emulation; nor the musician’s, which is fantastical; nor the courtier’s, which is proud; nor the soldier’s, which is ambitious; nor the lawyer’s, which is politic; nor the lady’s, which is nice; nor the lover’s, which is all these; but it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and, indeed, the sundry contemplation of my travels; in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous sadness.

Translations

Adjective

melancholy (comparative more melancholy, superlative most melancholy)

1. (literary) Affected with great sadness or depression.

Synonyms

• (thoughtful sadness): melancholic
• See also Thesaurus:sad

Translations

Related terms

• melancholic
• sadness
• melancholia