Mind & EmotionGreek → English
Dysphoria
/dɪsˈfɔːriə/noun
A state of unease or dissatisfaction with oneself or one's condition.
The Greek roots
δυσ-
dys-
bad, hard
φέρω
phérō
to bear, carry
Literally: “hard to bear”
The story of the word
In the Hippocratic writings δυσφορία is a patient's restlessness, the inability to lie still and bear an illness. Its opposite, εὐφορία, meant bearing something well, which is the road by which euphoria came to mean feeling good. Psychiatry has since narrowed the word into named syndromes, gender dysphoria most of all, but the plain sense of a discomfort you carry is older by two thousand years.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
euphoriametaphorperipheryphosphorus
In a sentence
The dysphoria lifted for about an hour in the afternoon and then came back.