Aerophagia

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The condition is characterized by the ingestion of air during eating or drinking, leading to gas and bloating in the digestive system
2. This ailment involves the unintentional swallowing of air which results in discomfort and abdominal distension
3. The habit of taking in excess air when eating or talking that causes stomach bloating and gas buildup

Etymology: Aerophagia is built from two Greek elements: "aer", meaning air, and "phagia", from "phagein", to eat. The compound is a modern medical coinage, formed from classical roots in the way that many clinical terms were, rather than a word the ancient Greeks themselves used for swallowing air. Its literal sense is "air-eating," which is a fairly direct description of the condition it names. The "-phagia" ending is a common formation in medical vocabulary. It appears in words like "dysphagia," meaning difficulty swallowing, and "polyphagia," meaning excessive eating. Physicians attach it to a root to name a particular kind of eating or swallowing, so aerophagia belongs to that family of terms describing what the body takes in.