Mind & EmotionGreek → English
Schizophrenia
/ˌskɪtsəˈfriːniə/noun
A chronic psychiatric disorder involving hallucinations, delusions and disordered thought.
The Greek roots
σχίζειν
skhízein
to split, cleave
φρήν
phrḗn
mind, midriff
Literally: “split mind”
The story of the word
Eugen Bleuler coined it in 1908 to replace Kraepelin's dementia praecox, and the split he meant was between thought and emotion within one mind, never two personalities. The popular misreading of the word has outlived every attempt to correct it. Φρήν originally meant the midriff, where Homer located thinking, and it survives in frenzy and frantic. Schism comes from the same verb as the first half.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1912
Same family
schismschistfreneticfrantic
In a sentence
He has lived with schizophrenia for thirty years and worked for twenty-eight of them.