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ennui.

A gripping listlessness or melancholia caused by boredom; depression.

5 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ɒnˈwiː/Received-Pronunciation/ɑnˈwi/General-American

  1. A gripping listlessness or melancholia caused by boredom; depression.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₁én Proto-Italic *en Proto-Italic *en- Latin in- Proto-Indo-European *h₃ed-der. Proto-Italic *odjom Latin odium Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti Proto-Indo-European *-h₂tiinflu. Proto-Italic *-ājō Proto-Italic *-āō Latin -ō Late Latin inodiāre Old French enuier? Old French enui French ennuiubor. English ennui Unadapted borrowing from French ennui, from Old French enui (“annoyance”), from enuier (modern French ennuyer), from Late Latin inodiō, from Latin in odiō (“hated”). Doublet of annoy.

verb/ɒnˈwiː/Received-Pronunciation/ɑnˈwi/General-American

  1. To make bored or listless; to weary.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₁én Proto-Italic *en Proto-Italic *en- Latin in- Proto-Indo-European *h₃ed-der. Proto-Italic *odjom Latin odium Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti Proto-Indo-European *-h₂tiinflu. Proto-Italic *-ājō Proto-Italic *-āō Latin -ō Late Latin inodiāre Old French enuier? Old French enui French ennuiubor. English ennui Unadapted borrowing from French ennui, from Old French enui (“annoyance”), from enuier (modern French ennuyer), from Late Latin inodiō, from Latin in odiō (“hated”). Doublet of annoy.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.