Opposite of Got the Morbs
What it really means
The Victorians had a short way of saying I'm a bit down. You had got the morbs.
J. Redding Ware recorded it in Passing English of the Victorian Era (1909), dated it to 1880, and filed it as society slang — the talk of drawing rooms rather than streets. His definition is two words: Temporary melancholia.
The important word there is temporary. The morbs are not a condition. They are a mood that has settled in and will, with luck, move on: a wet week, a disappointing letter, a dull party. Ware explains the construction too. It is an abstract noun coined from adjective morbid — take morbid, clip it, and add the -s that English uses for passing complaints: the blues, the sulks, the jitters, the morbs.
That little -s does a lot of work. It turns a mood into something you have caught, like a cold, rather than something you are. She's morbid is a judgement on a person. She's got the morbs is a report on her week.
Ware's book sits got the morbs in a cluster of similar phrases — got the pants for being out of breath, got the woefuls for feeling wretched, got the shutters up for being surly. Victorian slang, it seems, had a whole drawer of words for being out of sorts.
As a phrase it is light, and that is the point of it. If a low mood isn't temporary, it deserves more than slang — a GP or someone you trust is the place to start.
Where it comes from
from morbid, gloomy
the plural of a passing complaint, like 'the blues' or 'the sulks'
Ware: an 'abstract noun coined from adjective morbid'.
- 1880
The date Ware gives it, labelled society slang.
- 1909
Ware's Passing English of the Victorian Era: 'Got the morbs (Soc., 1880). Temporary melancholia.'
In real life
- Three grey Sundays in a row and the whole flat had got the morbs.
- He gets the morbs every year when the clocks go back, and cheers up as soon as the bulbs come through.
- She'd got the morbs after the film, so they went for chips until she felt human again.
Questions
Q01What does 'got the morbs' mean?
To be in a gloomy mood for a while. J. Redding Ware's Passing English of the Victorian Era (1909) dates it to 1880, labels it society slang, and defines it as 'temporary melancholia'.
Q02Where does 'the morbs' come from?
From 'morbid'. Ware calls it an abstract noun coined from the adjective — the same pattern as 'the blues' or 'the sulks'.
Q03Did 'the morbs' mean depression?
Not as a medical term. It was everyday slang for a passing low mood, and Ware stresses the 'temporary'. Anyone whose low mood doesn't lift should talk to a GP or someone they trust.
Sources
- J. Redding Ware, Passing English of the Victorian Era (1909), full text — 'Got the morbs (Soc., 1880)'.
- Mental Floss — Victorian slang list (includes got the morbs).