Mind & EmotionGreek → English
Trichotillomania
/ˌtrɪkoʊˌtɪləˈmeɪniə/noun
A disorder in which a person repeatedly pulls out their own hair, often leaving bald patches.
The Greek roots
θρίξ
thríx
hair
τίλλειν
tíllein
to pluck, pull out
μανία
manía
madness, frenzy
Literally: “hair-pulling madness”
The story of the word
François Hallopeau, a Paris dermatologist, named the condition in 1889 after a patient who pulled his hair out in handfuls. The Greek for hair changes shape as it declines, θρίξ but τριχός, because the language would not carry two aspirated sounds in successive syllables, and that is why English got trich- rather than thrix-. Current manuals group it with obsessive-compulsive disorders rather than with the impulse-control problems where it used to sit.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1889
Same family
trichologytrichomekleptomania
In a sentence
The thinning patch at her crown was the first sign of trichotillomania anyone noticed.