What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Melancholic vs Mournful - What's the difference?

melancholic | mournful |

As adjectives the difference between melancholic and mournful

is that melancholic is filled with or affected by melancholy—great sadness or depression, especially of a thoughtful or introspective nature while mournful is filled with grief or sadness; being in a state in which one mourns.

As a noun melancholic

is a person who is habitually melancholy.

melancholic

English

Alternative forms

* melancholick (obsolete)

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Filled with or affected by melancholy—great sadness or depression, especially of a thoughtful or introspective nature.
  • * Prior
    • Just as the melancholic eye / Sees fleets and armies in the sky.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A person who is habitually melancholy.
  • * {{quote-news, year=2008, date=March 16, author=Garrison Keillor, title=Woe Be Gone, work=New York Times citation
    • , passage=Kafka, Hart Crane, Jackson Pollock , Tennessee Williams , Mark Rothko , melancholics all, so why shouldn’t we accept our own bleakness and take long walks in the winter woods and look at the gnarled limbs of trees and struggle with the inscrutable and accept the beauty of permanent turmoil? }}

    mournful

    English

    Alternative forms

    * mournfull

    Adjective

    (en-adj)
  • Filled with grief or sadness; being in a state in which one mourns.
  • Fit to inspire mourning; tragic.
  • * (Edgar Allan Poe)
    • Having deposited our mournful burden upon tressels within this region of horror, we partially turned aside the yet unscrewed lid of the coffin, and looked upon the face of the tenant.

    Synonyms

    * See also