Mind & EmotionGreek → English
Neurosis
/njʊəˈrəʊsɪs/noun
A mild mental disorder marked by anxiety or obsessive behaviour without loss of contact with reality.
The Greek roots
νεῦρον
neûron
sinew, nerve
-ωσις
-ōsis
condition, process
Literally: “nerve condition”
The story of the word
The Scottish physician William Cullen coined it in the 1770s for diseases he thought came from the nervous system without any visible lesion, a physical hypothesis rather than a psychological one. Freud recast it as a conflict in the mind, and the word left the nerves behind. Νεῦρον originally meant sinew or bowstring, which is why neural and nerve trace back to a word about tendons.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1770s
Same family
neuronneurologyneuralgiaaponeurosis
In a sentence
Her checking of the locks had hardened into a full neurosis by the third winter.