Emily Dickinson Lexicon

MEL'AN-CHOL-IC, a. [See Melancholy.]

1. Depressed in spirits; affected with gloom; dejected; hypochondriac. Grief indulged to excess, has a tendency to render a person melancholic.
2. Produced by melancholy; expressive of melancholy; mournful; as, melancholic strains. Just as the melancholic eye / Sees fleets and armies in the sky. Prior.
3. Unhappy; unfortunate; causing sorrow; as, accidents and melancholic perplexities. Clarendon.