Mind & EmotionGreek → English
Pedophilia
/ˌpiːdəˈfɪliə/noun
A psychiatric disorder marked by persistent sexual attraction to prepubescent children.
The Greek roots
παῖς
paîs
child
φιλία
philía
affection, fondness
Literally: “love of children”
The story of the word
The Greek pieces mean child and affection, and in Greek they carried none of the modern sense: φιλία covered friendship, family feeling and loyalty. Krafft-Ebing fixed the clinical term in Psychopathia Sexualis in the 1890s, one of a long list of Greek coinages that psychiatry has used ever since. British spelling keeps the diphthong, paedophilia, which stays closer to παῖς.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1890s
Same family
pediatricspedagogueencyclopediaphilanthropy
In a sentence
The statute keeps pedophilia as a diagnosis separate from the offences it may or may not lead to.