Nymphomania

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /nɪmfəˈmeɪnɪə/

Definitions

1. A psychological condition involving an overwhelming and often obsessive sexual desire that predominantly affects women
2. An excessive and compulsive preoccupation with sexual activity, typically manifesting in females as a disorder
3. A psychological disorder characterized by an intense and uncontrollable craving for sexual activity in females

Etymology: "Nymph" in classical Greek and Latin meant a minor female divinity of nature, a spirit of groves, springs and mountains, usually imagined as young and beautiful. The Latin "nympha" carried that sense, and by the Renaissance it had acquired a second meaning in anatomy, referring to the labia minora. That anatomical use is the key to the word's later life, since it gave physicians a Latin-based term for the part of the body they associated with female sexual arousal. "Nymphomania" itself is a New Latin formation, built from "nympho-" (the combining form of "nympha") and "-mania," the Greek-derived suffix denoting an obsessive craving or compulsion, as in "kleptomania." It was coined in the scientific language of the 18th and 19th centuries, when physicians were naming supposed psychological and physical disorders by joining classical elements. The ancient Greeks and Romans did not use the word, and the condition it names was defined by the medical writers who created it.