What's the difference between melancholy and sad?

Melancholy


Definition:

  • (n.) Depression of spirits; a gloomy state continuing a considerable time; deep dejection; gloominess.
  • (n.) Great and continued depression of spirits, amounting to mental unsoundness; melancholia.
  • (n.) Pensive maditation; serious thoughtfulness.
  • (n.) Ill nature.
  • (a.) Depressed in spirits; dejected; gloomy dismal.
  • (a.) Producing great evil and grief; causing dejection; calamitous; afflictive; as, a melancholy event.
  • (a.) Somewhat deranged in mind; having the jugment impaired.
  • (a.) Favorable to meditation; somber.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) One radio critic described Jacobs' late night Sunday show as a "tidying-up time, a time for wistfulness, melancholy, a recognition that there were once great things and great feelings in this world.
  • (2) And melancholy is not the only thing that links Haigh’s work.
  • (3) Melancholy originally had another meaning from the present one.
  • (4) the agitated type of involutional melancholy occurred twice as often in Canada as in Hungary, the apathetic cases were rarer in Canada, and the illness began earlier among Canadian women.
  • (5) Thus New Zealand, like other countries, may be entering an age of melancholy.
  • (6) English explanations stressed religious aspects and a relationship to melancholy.
  • (7) I too was attracted to the paintings of De Chirico and Delvaux, with their dreamplaces – empty, melancholy cities, abandoned temples, broken statues, shadows, exaggerated perspectives.
  • (8) Earlier this week in Janesville, where post-industrial melancholy is evident in a closed car plant and eerily quiet downtown, House speaker Paul Ryan crushed a Trump-style challenger in a congressional primary.
  • (9) There was always a rueful melancholy, stiffened by irony and leavened by humour about him.
  • (10) Song of the summer was Waterloo Sunset by the Kinks, with its odd blend of keening melancholy and positivism.
  • (11) Resorting to a series of Ted the swordsman scenes which may merely be the lurid fantasies of the heroine, director Christine Jeffs never makes it clear whether Hughes was a rampaging philanderer whose sexual conquests and general obliviousness to Plath's mounting depression led to her demise, or a man driven into other women's arms by his wife's chronic melancholy - perhaps the most time-honoured excuse of the inveterate tomcat - or both.
  • (12) "Oh, if one of Dostoevsky's novels, whose black melancholy is regarded with such indulgent admiration, were signed with the name of Goncourt, what a slating it would get all along the line."
  • (13) It's a melancholy fate for any writer to become an eponym for all that he despised, but that is what happened to George Orwell, whose memory is routinely abused in unthinking uses of the adjective "Orwellian".
  • (14) As the lead singer with the Walker Brothers, he enjoyed a number of melancholy hits with songs such as The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore, My Ship Is Coming In, No Regrets.
  • (15) The leading role is infinitely variable: as Oscar Wilde said , "There are as many Hamlets as there are melancholies."
  • (16) In the right light and with the right song playing on the radio, there is a certain melancholy charm to this bleak highway with its unfolding panorama of wind turbines and electricity pylons stretching to the horizon.
  • (17) On the contrary: Sørens incomparable melancholy, mental agony and anxiety (fear or anguish) forced the faith, existing independently of them, in a radical refining.
  • (18) There’s a magnificent melancholy about him, this shadowy figure performing an act of unrequited love.
  • (19) Closer is a melancholy piece but it is also laugh-out-loud funny, often, as in the very best drama, at moments of starkest pain.
  • (20) Research is needed to determine whether youth will be predisposed to further depressive episodes and, if so, will we be entering a new age of melancholy?

Sad


Definition:

  • (supperl.) Sated; satisfied; weary; tired.
  • (supperl.) Heavy; weighty; ponderous; close; hard.
  • (supperl.) Dull; grave; dark; somber; -- said of colors.
  • (supperl.) Serious; grave; sober; steadfast; not light or frivolous.
  • (supperl.) Affected with grief or unhappiness; cast down with affliction; downcast; gloomy; mournful.
  • (supperl.) Afflictive; calamitous; causing sorrow; as, a sad accident; a sad misfortune.
  • (supperl.) Hence, bad; naughty; troublesome; wicked.
  • (v. t.) To make sorrowful; to sadden.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) She loved us and we loved her.” “We would have loved to have had a little grandchild from her,” she says sadly.
  • (2) Wimbledon said the world No1 Williams had been suffering from a viral illness and it was a sad and bizarre end to the American’s tournament, not to mention a worrying sight, seeing her hardly able to play.
  • (3) Sadly, the bullet will not only kill off Greece’s future in Europe.
  • (4) Calum MacLean, Grangemouth Petrochemicals chairman, says, “This is a hugely sad day for everyone at Grangemouth.
  • (5) Sadly, the Jewish fanatic who assassinated Rabin in 1995 achieved his broader aim of derailing the peace train.
  • (6) It also devalues the courage of real whistleblowers who have used proper channels to hold our government accountable.” McCain added: “It is a sad, yet perhaps fitting commentary on President Obama’s failed national security policies that he would commute the sentence of an individual that endangered the lives of American troops, diplomats, and intelligence sources by leaking hundreds of thousands of sensitive government documents to WikiLeaks, a virulently anti-American organisation that was a tool of Russia’s recent interference in our elections.” WikiLeaks last year published emails hacked from the accounts of the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta, chairman of Hillary Clinton’s election campaign.
  • (7) I watched as she made the briefest eye contact with me on their way back, the flicker of hurt and sadness in her eyes reflecting mine, before the shutters came down.
  • (8) Only at 3 days did total plasma volume of SAD rats show a modest reduction of about 16% (P less than 0.05 vs. sham-operated plus unoperated controls).
  • (9) These sad numbers show that more Washington spending, threats of higher taxes on small businesses, and excessive government regulations don't create a healthy environment for job growth," Boehner said.
  • (10) Thirty-two nursing students were shown silent films in which 10 normal and 10 schizophrenic women described a happy, sad, and an angry personal experience.
  • (11) World Wildlife Fund Great Barrier Reef campaigner Richard Leck said it was a sad day for the reef and anyone who cared about its future.
  • (12) It is so sad, we don’t let her go out even if the weather is nice,” he says.
  • (13) During interviews, married couples experiencing infertility reported emotional reactions such as sadness, depression, anger, confusion, desperation, hurt, embarrassment, and humiliation.
  • (14) Half of the rats in each group had SAD surgery 1 week prior to study.
  • (15) There’s an overwhelming sadness among kids like that who have been kept there for a very long time.
  • (16) It is sadly slightly the territory we have inherited,” he said.
  • (17) In a statement the family said they were left "extremely sad and disappointed" by the verdicts: "We appreciate the work and effort over the years since events on Broadwater Farm that night in trying to bring people to justice.
  • (18) Moreover, no differences were found in abnormal lung function patients with and those without SAD in demographic, clinical, roentgenologic, and serologic features and results of pulmonary function tests.
  • (19) It is sad that the BBC chose to give Nick Griffin a platform.
  • (20) The only thing I'd say is that I know, from people who've told me firsthand, that sadly mixed marriages can be a bit conflicted on everyday issues.

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