Pagophagia

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A compulsive craving to chew or swallow ice, often linked to iron deficiency anemia and recognized as a form of pica
2. The habitual urge to consume ice cubes or other frozen water, sometimes a symptom of a nutritional or blood disorder
3. An abnormal persistent desire to eat ice, classed as a craving behavior that can signal a lack of iron in the body

Etymology: Pagophagia is the compulsive craving to chew ice, a condition usually linked to iron deficiency anaemia. The word is built from two Greek elements. The first, "págos", meant "ice" or "frost" in ancient Greek, and it appears in English words such as "pagoscope", an instrument for studying ice. The second, "-phagia", comes from "phagein", "to eat", and is the same ending found in "dysphagia" (difficulty swallowing) and "geophagia" (the eating of earth or clay). Put together, the word literally means "eating ice". Its structure follows the pattern of other medical terms built from Greek roots, so it is a modern scientific coinage rather than a term that ancient Greek speakers would have recognised. The "-phagia" suffix gives the sense of a habitual or pathological urge to eat a particular substance, and the same pattern produces a whole family of clinical words for unusual appetites.