Phoria

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A state of carrying or bearing, often associated with a sense of sensation or emotional experience
2. Representing a feeling of joy or elation that may arise from an external stimulus or internal perception
3. Denoting a psychological condition reflecting a heightened sense of awareness or response to certain stimuli or emotions

Etymology: "-phoria" comes from Ancient Greek "phoría," a noun built on "phérein," meaning "to bear" or "to carry." In Greek it worked as a suffix, so it was a building block for compounds rather than a word on its own. The joy sense most likely comes from "euphoria," where the prefix "eu-" means "well" or "good." The Greek "euphoria" meant something like "easy to bear," and in English the bearing became an inner state of well-being. The standalone form is better known in English as a term from eye medicine, describing a latent tendency of the eyes to drift out of alignment when they are not held together by binocular fusion, as in "exophoria" and "esophoria."

Synonyms: ocular deviation, eye misalignment

Antonyms: orthophoria, normal eye alignment