Mind & EmotionGreek → English
Coprolalia
/ˌkɒprəˈleɪliə/noun
The involuntary uttering of obscene or taboo words.
The Greek roots
κόπρος
kópros
dung
λαλιά
laliá
talk, chatter
Literally: “dung talk”
The story of the word
Gilles de la Tourette described the symptom in his 1885 paper on the syndrome that now carries his name, and the clinical term followed shortly after. The Greek is unglamorous: κόπρος is dung, plain and agricultural. The same root gives palaeontology the coprolite, fossilised excrement, which Victorian collectors bought and polished and put on the mantelpiece.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- late 19th century
Same family
coprolitecoprophagiapalilaliaecholalia
In a sentence
Only a minority of people with Tourette's have coprolalia, though it is the part television always shows.
The coprolalia was worse when he was tired and vanished when he sang.