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Dumps

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To be in the dumps. Out of spirits; in the “sullens.” According to etymological fable, it is derived from Dumops, King of Egypt, who built a pyramid and died of melancholy. Gay’s Third Pastoral is Wednesday, or the Dumps. (German, dumm, stupid, dull.)

“Why, how now, daughter Katbarine? in your dumps?”—Shakespeare: Taming of the Shrew. ii. 1.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.