Mind & EmotionGreek → English
Cyclothymia
/ˌsaɪkloʊˈθaɪmiə/noun
A mood disorder of repeated mild swings between elation and low spirits, never reaching full mania or major depression.
The Greek roots
κύκλος
kýklos
circle, wheel
θυμός
thymós
spirit, mood
Literally: “circling spirit”
The story of the word
Karl Kahlbaum introduced Zyklothymie in 1882 for the milder circular form of what his student Kraepelin would later fold into manic-depressive illness. The circle came from French alienists writing about folie circulaire, patients who cycled without ever fully recovering in between. DSM keeps it as cyclothymic disorder, defined by two years of swings that stay under the diagnostic line.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → German coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
cyclebicycleencyclopediadysthymia
In a sentence
The cyclothymia was only obvious once he kept a mood chart for a year.