Wednesday Etymology Lesson: melancholy

This one’s a bummer, folks.  Today’s word is melancholy [sad trombone].  The word itself comes from the Ancient Greek words kholḗ meaning, “gall, or bile,” and mélas meaning, “dark, black, murky.”  You’ll recognize mélas from the word melanin. 

Back in medieval times, physicians believed that the body had four humors, which were basically four bodily fluids, blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile.  These humors corresponded to the four elements, air, water, fire, earth respectively.  They could become imbalanced for any number of reasons.  Ancient physicians believed that a melancholic state of depression or great sadness was caused by an excess of black bile, or earth, in the body originating in the spleen.  Treatments for excessive black bile included, of course, blood letting by way of leeches, mistletoe poisoning, consumption of moist warm foods, and dancing!