Crossword Genius

Gloomy yet funny linguistic study (9)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

etymology

'linguistic study' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)

'gloomy yet funny' is the wordplay.
'funny' indicates anagramming the letters.
'gloomy'+'yet'='gloomyyet'
'gloomyyet' is an anagram of 'ETYMOLOGY'.

(Other definitions for etymology that I've seen before include "Investigation of derivation of words" , "linguistic study" , "Word history" , "Word derivation" , "original source" .)

I've seen this clue in The Independent.
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