Weltschmerz
Etymology
German, literally "world-pain," from "Welt" ("world") and "Schmerz" ("pain"). It was coined in the early 1800s by the writer Jean Paul and became a hallmark of Romantic-era melancholy. The mood it names is old, but the single word for it is a deliberate literary invention.
noun · /VELT-shmairts/
A weary sadness that comes from feeling the world will always fall short of how you wish it could be.
What it names
The specific ache of comparing reality to an ideal and mourning the gap between them.
Example
Reading the news every morning left him with a low-grade weltschmerz he couldn’t shake.
Related idea
Unlike Sehnsucht, which yearns toward something, weltschmerz aches at the world as it is; and where ennui is mere boredom, weltschmerz carries genuine grief.