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Look up depression in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Depression is a general lowering or reduction, for example of mood, activity, or functionality:

Psychology and mood

• Depression (personality), a personality facet in Revised NEO Personality Inventory.
• Depression (mood), a common term for a sad or low mood or emotional state, or the loss of pleasure
• Clinical depression, or major depressive disorder, a clinical term for a state of intense sadness, melancholia or despair that has advanced to the point of being disruptive to an individual's social functioning and/or activities of daily living. Subtypes of clinical depression:

• Melancholic depression, characterized by the inability to find pleasure in positive things combined with physical agitation, insomnia, or decreased appetite
• Atypical depression, a common long term cyclical form of depression in which the individual can feel enjoyment, eat, and sleep, but there is significant lethargy, a 'leaden' feeling, and a strong response to rejection-related issues
• Psychotic depression, in which clinical depression co-exists with psychotic or delusional perceptions

• Postnatal depression, depression following childbirth. Also known as 'Postpartum depression' or, usually when less severe, 'maternity blues' or 'baby blues'

Other medical and biological uses

• Depression (physiology), a lowering, in particular a reduction in a biological variable or the function of an organ, antonym of elevation
• Depression (kinesiology), an anatomical term of motion

A depression is a sunken area, of any size, occurring in the ground or any other other surface:

• Depression (geology), a sunken landform

Or, more generally, an area or period of relative lowering:

• Depression (economics), a more severe economic downturn than a recession

• The Great Depression, a severe economic recession in the 1930s

• Depression (meteorology), an area of low atmospheric pressure

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