A feeling of listless weariness and dissatisfaction arising from boredom or lack of interest.
A feeling of listless weariness and dissatisfaction arising from boredom or lack of interest; world-weary tedium.
Deeper and more existential than ordinary boredom — it carries a sense of spiritual or world-weary dissatisfaction, not merely a momentary lack of stimulation. Differs from melancholy in being rooted in tedium/satiety rather than sorrow.
From French ennui, from Old French enui “annoyance” — the same root that gave English “annoy.”
1660s as a French word in English, nativized by 1758; from French ennui, from Old French enui “annoyance” (same source as “annoy”). The pronunciation was never anglicized.
The French root meant “annoyance”; in English from the 17th–18th c. it took on the sense of a refined, world-weary boredom, culturally elaborated by Romantic and Decadent writers. No sourced evidence of a recent shift.