libido

Etymology

It is a learned borrowed from Latin libīdō (“desire, longing, will; sexual appetite, lust”),^[2][3][4][5] also lubido,^[6] from libet (“it is pleasing”).^[6][4][7][8] Etymonline and the American Heritage Dictionary trace it to Proto-Indo-European *leubʰ- (“to care, desire, love”),^[6][3] and the OED takes it as probably from the same Indo-European base as love;^[2] Ayto groups it with lief, Liebe and liefde.^[9] The OED notes that the sense "sexual desire" probably followed the use of the Latin word in German writing, by Krafft-Ebing from 1886 or earlier, and the psychoanalytic sense the German Libido of Freud.^[2] Merriam-Webster gives it as New Latin.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Sexual desire, sex drive: 1891, in a medical journal.^[2] Etymonline finds it in 1892, carried over untranslated in the English edition of Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis.^[6] Barnhart and Merriam-Webster date it to 1909,^[4][7] and Dictionary.com to 1890–95.^[8]

Semantic evolution

In 1909 A. A. Brill's translation of Freud's Selected Papers on Hysteria brought in the psychoanalytic sense, the psychic energy that comes from the instinctual drives,^[2][4][6] and according to Etymonline Freud's use of the term made it popular.^[6] The Shorter Oxford gives only this psychoanalytic sense, from the early 20th century,^[10] and the Oxford Dictionary of English likewise dates the word to the early 20th century.^[11] From 1927 it was also used figuratively for a strong need or desire for something.^[2] Collins labels the psychic-energy sense as psychoanalytic and gives the sexual urge as the second sense.^[12]

Timeline

• 1891 – sexual desire, sex drive.^[2]
• 1909 – in psychoanalysis, the psychic energy of the instinctual drives, in A. A. Brill's translation of Freud.^[2][4][6]
• 1922 – the adjective libidinal.^[4]
• 1927 – figuratively, a strong need or desire for something.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. Sexual desire; the sex drive: Some medicines can lower the libido.^[2][12][3]
2. (psychoanalysis) The psychic energy that comes from the instinctual drives, especially those linked with the sexual instinct.^{[2][7][3][12]}
3. A strong need or desire for something.^[2]

Word family

• libidinal
• libidinally

Related words

• libidinous
• love
• lief

References

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