Somatotonia

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A personality type associated with a muscular, athletic build, marked by assertiveness, energy and a love of physical activity
2. The assertive, vigorous temperament that William Sheldon linked to a sturdy, muscular body build
3. Energetic, bold and action-oriented disposition that psychologists associate with a mesomorphic physique

Etymology: Somatotonia is a compound built from two Greek-derived parts: "soma" (body) and "tonia," from "tonos," meaning tension or tone. The word belongs to the vocabulary of 20th-century psychology, where it names one of the three body-type temperaments proposed by the American psychologist William Sheldon. Sheldon grouped physiques by which tissue dominated, and the somatotonic type was the muscular, bony build, linked to an assertive, energetic and athletic disposition. The pairing is deliberate. Sheldon's other categories, viscerotonia and cerebrotonia, use the same "-tonia" ending, so the three names read as a set, each pointing to the part of the body that seemed to drive a person's temperament. The word therefore reflects a theory about the body and character rather than an ordinary descriptive term.