Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Bulimia
/bʊˈlɪmiə/noun
An eating disorder marked by episodes of binge eating followed by purging or other compensation.
The Greek roots
βοῦς
boûs
ox
λιμός
limós
hunger, famine
Literally: “ox-hunger”
The story of the word
Ox-hunger, and the ox is doing what Greek prefixes often do: making the following word enormous. Ancient physicians used boulimía for ravenous appetite with faintness, and English had it as bulimy in the fourteenth century. The psychiatrist Gerald Russell named bulimia nervosa in 1979, a hundred years after anorexia nervosa and on the same model.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Medieval Latin → English
- First recorded
- 14th century
Same family
anorexiabulimichyperbole
In a sentence
Bulimia is often missed because body weight can stay in the normal range.
He wrote about living with bulimia through his twenties.