melancholia
"melancholia" is a 11-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“melancholia” is uncommon English (frequency #61,626 among 36,575 “M” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #61,626
- frequency rank, English
- 36,575
- “M” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Deep sadness or gloom; melancholy
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | melancholia |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 11 |
| Frequency rank | #61,626 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “melancholia” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
melancholia is uncommon English at frequency #61,626 among 36,575 “M” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
melancholia has no tracked misspelling variants, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Late Latin melancholia, which was in turn borrowed from the Ancient Greek medical term μελαγχολία (melankholía, “blackness of the bile”), from μέλας (mélas), μελαν- (melan-, “black, dark, murky”) + χολή (kholḗ, “bile”). Doublet of melancholy. The correct English form is melancholia, spelled M-E-L-A-N-C-H-O-L-I-A.
Definition
- 1Deep sadness or gloom; melancholy
- 2depression, characterised by irrational fears, guilt and apathy
Etymology
From Late Latin melancholia, which was in turn borrowed from the Ancient Greek medical term μελαγχολία (melankholía, “blackness of the bile”), from μέλας (mélas), μελαν- (melan-, “black, dark, murky”) + χολή (kholḗ, “bile”). Doublet of melancholy.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “melancholia”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is M-E-L-A-N-C-H-O-L-I-A - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Other uncommon English words near this rank
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.