Hypochondria

[Dr. Goodword]

• hypochondria •

Pronunciation: hai-pê-kahn-dree-ê • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun, mass

Meaning: 1. Melancholy, low spirits, depression. 2. (Medicine: plural of hypochondrium) The regions of either side of the abdomen just below the lower ribs. 3. The persistent conviction and complaint—if not enjoyment—of illness despite the absence of symptoms.

Notes: Hypochondria started out as a plural and the medical term referring to the upper stomach still is. In the general vocabulary, however, it is now a mass noun with no plural. A person who suffers from hypochondria is a hypochondriac, a word which also serves as the adjective, as a hypochondriac patient.

In Play: Because the ancients considered the hypochondrium the seat of the humor causing melancholy, it has long been associated with depression: "Myrtle Crepe has been suffering from a deep hypochondria since the dog dug up her rose bushes." Most often, however, it refers to someone who constantly complains of imaginary illnesses: "Dr. Bill M. High specializes in hypochondria, which keeps his overhead very low."

Word History: Today's word comes to us from Greek hypokhondria, the plural of hypokhondrion "abdomen". This noun is the neuter of the adjective hypokhondrios "under the cartilage (of the breastbone)", a compound made up of hypo- "below, under" + khondros "lump, groats, cartilage". Khondros is based on a root that came down to English as grind, grist, grounds, and groats. The same root turns up in Latin frendere "to grind" which produced a noun frenum "bridle", on which horses ground their teeth. This noun was then 'verbalized' as refrenare "to restrain", which was borrowed by English as the verb to refrain, a kind of bridling.

[MTC]

A related and fascinating mental condition is Munchausen's syndrome, after Baron von Munchausen's truth-stretching adventures. Victims of the condition are said to consciously affect ailments to gain attention, unlike hypochondriacs whose motivations are unconscious. For discussion see http://www.munchausen.com/, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnchausen_syndrome.

I have come across a website in which those diagnosed (or misdiagnosed according to them) with Munchausen's syndrome have banded together to protect their legal rights.

[Pattie]

Today's good word prompts me to make a terrible confession. When I was about 13 or 14, I was insufferable (probably an opinion still held in certain quarters) but I plead in mitigation that I moved in insufferable circles, as girls of that age do. My English class, a coven of smarty-pants minxes, had a sweet, gentle young teacher who, I suspect in retrospect, was a bit intimidated by my friends and me (we had once flummoxed her on the meaning of a word). We, mean girls that we were, invented a word and decided to insert it into the English language to see if she could spot a fake. Our word was ‘hypochondolope’. In class we were studying Jane Eyre and when we had to write a character study we all wrote, with suitable documentation, that J. Eyre was a hypochondolope. Poor Miss B (for I shall spare her blushes) was very impressed (it was a lot of syllables for 14 year olds) but puzzled as to the word's meaning. We told her it meant someone who cried a lot. Which was, indeed its 'primary' meaning, though for me and my fellow perpetrators it denoted someone who - how to put this delicately? - broke wind a lot. You can imagine our unseemly mirth whenever Miss B used the word in class. Perhaps you can also imagine and delight in our misery (well deserved) when the ruse was discovered and punished.

[MTC]

What an inspired hoax and entertaining story, Pattie! Only mildly mean, but deliciously mean. Where have you been, anyway? Welcome to the limelight. I think you will appreciate the following classical maxim and double entendre:

No man (or woman) was ever great without a touch of divine afflatus (Nemo igitur vir magnus sine aliquo adflatu divino umquam fuit. De Natura Deorum II.167)

P.S.

You and your coven anticipated Mountweazels, the "proto" phase perhaps....

[bamaboy56]

Let's not also forget Munchausen by Proxy, where someone gains attention to themselves for working as a caregiver by afflicting someone else (usually a loved one) with ill health. Sad that someone would crave attention so much that they would resort to that.