ennui
Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2005 3:03 pm
I sometimes feel an ennui coming on, but usually ony know when in its midst. Mostly I like the sound of the word.ennui \on-WEE; ON-wee\, noun:
A feeling of weariness and dissatisfaction; dullness and languor of spirits, arising from lack of interest; boredom.
He glanced at his heavily laden bookshelves. Nothing there appealed to him. The ennui seemed to have settled into his very bones.
--Amanda Quick, With This Ring
He was often off sick or playing hooky and suffered from a kind of ennui, a mixture of listlessness and willful melancholy.
--Elisabeth Roudinesco, Jacques Lacan (Translated by Barbara Bray)
Yet if she felt anything it was ennui,... the grey sky and the cold wind obliterating every impulse she might have felt to seek comfort in another climate, another landscape. She was free to leave but felt condemned to stay.
--Anita Brookner, Falling Slowly
He was ashamed and unhappy, adrift with a senseless ennui.
--Brian Moynahan, Rasputin: The Saint Who Sinned
Katy