hypnosis

Etymology

It is formed from English hypno- + -osis,^[2][3][4] or taken as New Latin hypnōsis,^[5][6][7] modelled on a hypothetical Ancient Greek *ὕπνωσις (*húpnōsis), a noun of action from ὑπνοῦν (hupnoûn, “to put to sleep”),^{[8][5][9][10]} which is from ὕπνος (húpnos, “sleep”).^[9][6][10] The OED compares French hypnose (“morbid sleep”).^[8] It was coined as an alternative to hypnotism,^[3][10] which James Braid of Manchester shortened in 1843 from his neuro-hypnotism of 1842.^[8][10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The coming on of sleep: 1850, according to Etymonline.^[3] The OED's first record of this sense, "the inducement or the gradual approach of sleep", is from 1876, in J. Harley's edition of Royle's Manual of Materia Medica;^[8][6] Merriam-Webster also dates the word to 1876,^[7] Dictionary.com to 1875–80,^[12] and Ayto to the 1870s.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Ayto tells how hypnotic, borrowed in the 17th century for sleep-inducing drugs, came to be applied to the techniques of inducing trance by suggestion developed in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, earlier called animal magnetism and mesmerism.^[10] Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories notes that Braid took the name of Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep, for hypnotism, the practice, which in turn gave hypnosis for the trance itself; the same myth gave morphine, named after Hypnos's son Morpheus.^[11] The distinction from "the coming on of sleep" was not kept: by 1876 the word was used of artificially induced states,^[3] and the OED records "artificially produced sleep, the hypnotic state" from 1882, in Quain's Dictionary of Medicine.^[8][6]

Timeline

• 1850 – the coming on of sleep.^[3] The OED's first record of this sense is from 1876.^[8]
• 1882 – artificially induced sleep, the hypnotic state.^[8][6] Etymonline finds this use by 1876.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A state resembling sleep, induced by another person, in which the subject readily accepts suggestions: She tried hypnosis to stop smoking.^[7][13][2]
2. Any of various conditions that resemble sleep.^[7]
3. Hypnotism, the practice of inducing such a state.^[7]

Word family

• autohypnosis

Related words

• hypnotize
• hypnotic
• hypnotism
• hypno-

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b c d e f g Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b c d e f Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
12. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins