Psychiatrist Carl Jung stated that “the word ‘happy’ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.”
It’s a fact of life that we all experience sadness every now and then, and the idiom down in the dumps is one way to describe that unhappy feeling.
Down in the dumps means to be in a discouraged, depressed, or sad mood. The expression down in the mouth is similiar.
- Carlo felt down in the dumps after he failed his driver’s test.
- Kim has been feeling down in the mouth because of recent money problems.
The noun dumps has been used for "a state of depression" since the early 1500s, and down in the mouth, alluding to the downturned corners of the mouth as a sign of misery, dates from the mid-1600s.*
The more you use idioms and phrasal verbs, the better your fluency will be. I will be happy if you add down in the dumps to your vocabulary :)
*This is according to the American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
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