Dacryorrhea

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An abnormal or excessive overflow of tears from the eyes, often caused by a blocked or malfunctioning tear duct
2. The condition of producing far too many tears, sometimes due to a medical problem with the lacrimal system
3. A medical disorder in which tears flow in abundance, typically because the tear drainage passages are obstructed

Etymology: Dacryorrhea is a medical coinage, built in modern scientific style from two Greek elements rather than inherited from any ancient text. The first part, "dacryo-", comes from the Greek "dakruon", meaning "tear", a root that also lies behind the English word "lacrimal" through Latin "lacrima". The second part, "-rrhea", comes from the Greek "rhoia", meaning "flow" or "discharge", the same element that appears in "diarrhea" and "gonorrhea". Put together, the word literally means "a flowing of tears". The suffix is the more revealing piece. Physicians in the 18th and 19th centuries used "-rrhea" to name any abnormal discharge, so a word like this follows the same pattern as the terms for other excessive fluid flows. Because the two halves are Greek but the combination is modern, the word is best understood as a deliberate technical formation that uses classical building blocks, not a term that ancient Greek writers used for weeping.

Synonyms: epiphora, watery eye