Mind & EmotionGreek → English
Catharsis
/kəˈθɑːrsɪs/noun
The relief that comes from letting a strong emotion out.
The Greek roots
κάθαρσις
kátharsis
cleansing, purging
καθαρός
katharós
clean, pure
Literally: “a cleansing”
The story of the word
Aristotle's Poetics says tragedy achieves the κάθαρσις of pity and fear, and nobody has settled what he meant: a medical purge, a moral cleansing, or a tempering of the feelings. English met the medical sense first, in the 1770s, when a cathartic was a laxative. Breuer and Freud took the word for their talking cure in the 1890s, and the emotional meaning in use today comes from them.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 1770s
Same family
catharticCathar
In a sentence
He called the funeral a catharsis, though he did not cry until weeks later.