Mind & EmotionGreek → English
Dysthymia
/dɪsˈθaɪmiə/noun
A long-running low-grade depression, milder than a major episode but far more persistent.
The Greek roots
δυσ-
dys-
bad, ill
θυμός
thymós
spirit, seat of feeling
Literally: “bad spirit”
The story of the word
θυμός in Homer is where anger and courage live, somewhere in the chest, and it is closer to breath and drive than to anything we would call mood. Karl Kahlbaum used Dysthymie in the nineteenth century for chronic low spirits; DSM-III installed it as a diagnosis in 1980 and DSM-5 renamed it persistent depressive disorder in 2013. The older word has outlived the rename in most clinics.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → German coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
cyclothymiaeuthymiadysphoriadysentery
In a sentence
Dysthymia is easy to miss precisely because nothing about it looks like a crisis.