noun
A feeling of utter weariness and discontent resulting from satiety or lack of interest; boredom: The endless lecture produced an unbearable ennui.
Quotes
A life of constant inaction, bodily and mental,—the friction of ceaseless ennui and discontent, united to the ordinary weakness which attended the period of maternity,—in course of a few years changed the blooming young belle into a yellow, faded, sickly woman…
— Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 1852.
Origin
Ennui entered English in the late 1600s and ultimately comes from the Old French enui meaning “displeasure.” It is etymologically related to the word annoy.
