cafard

/ (French kafar) /

a feeling of severe depression

Word Origin for cafard

C20: from French, literally: cockroach, hypocrite

Even Herr von Rader had the cafard—the fever to desert—and his good humour diminished perceptibly under its influence.

In the Foreign Legion |Erwin Rosen
The légionnaires are themselves not aware what influence the "cafard" has on them.

In the Foreign Legion |Erwin Rosen
The rest of my comrades in the room all had at different times the "cafard" more or less seriously….

In the Foreign Legion |Erwin Rosen
We go to bed and lie awake and get the 'cafard' worse and worse.

Home Fires in France |Dorothy Canfield

They mustn't risk disgrace through things which the cafard might make him do.

A Soldier of the Legion |C. N. Williamson