be in a blue funk

slang To feel sad or unhappy for a lengthy period of time. Ever since I got rejected from my first-choice college, I've been in a funk. I'm taking Don out tonight because he's been in a blue funk since his wife left him.

In a sad or dejected mood. One writer suggests that the term may come from the Walloon in de fonk zum, which means “to be in the smoke,” but this etymology has not been verified. Eric Partridge believed funk came from the Flemish fonck, for “perturbation” or “disturbance,” and indeed, to be in a funk at first meant to be very nervous or terrified (early eighteenth century). Somehow it got changed, perhaps owing to the addition of blue, with its colloquial meaning of “sad.” A more recent variant is a deep funk, said, for example, of a deep decline in the stock market: “The market’s fallen into a deep funk.”