neurosis

Etymology

It is borrowed from New Latin neurosis,^[2][3][4][5] coined by the Scottish physician William Cullen^[6][7] in his “Synopsis Nosologiae Methodicae” (1769),^[2] from Ancient Greek νεῦρον (neûron, “nerve”)^[2][6][7][8] and the suffix -osis (“abnormal condition”).^[6][8] The OED compares the Byzantine Greek word νεύρωσις (neúrōsis, “strengthening; muscular system”), and French névrose (1784) and neurose (1785).^[2] The Greek noun also meant "sinew, string" and goes back to Proto-Indo-European *(s)neuro- (“tendon, sinew”).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

A disease marked by abnormal working of the nervous system: 1783, in Cullen's First Lines of Practice of Physic.^[2][3] Etymonline gives 1776, Barnhart 1776–84, and Dictionary.com 1770–80, and the Oxford Dictionary of English and the Shorter Oxford the mid-18th century.^{[6][8][5][9][4]}

Semantic evolution

The word began in physiological medicine, for functional nervous disorders such as epilepsy, hysteria and neuralgia.^[6] In 1871 T. H. Huxley used it in the Contemporary Review for activity in the brain tied to mental activity, a use now historical,^[2] and Barnhart reads this as the first record of the mental sense, distinguished from psychosis.^[8] From 1874 the HTOED records it as a kind of mental illness marked by anxiety,^[10] and the American Heritage Dictionary connects this shift with Freud's psychoanalysis in the late 1800s.^[11] Etymonline dates clinical use in psychiatry to 1923.^[6] The usual contrast with psychosis is that the sufferer doesn't lose touch with reality.^[4][6][12] In 1927 the New Republic extended it to the anxiety or malaise of a person, group or nation.^[2][10]

Timeline

• 1783 – disorder of the nervous system without organic disease.^[2][3] Etymonline dates it to 1776.^[6]
• 1871 – brain activity bound up with mental activity (now historical), in T. H. Huxley.^[2][8]
• 1874 – mental disorder marked by anxiety.^[10]
• 1927 – anxiety or malaise of a person, group or nation.^[2][10]

Meanings

Noun

1. (psychology) A mental disorder of a milder kind, marked by anxiety, obsession or phobia, without loss of touch with reality; plural neuroses.^{[11][4][13][12][14]}
2. A persistent worry or preoccupation, in a person or a whole society: the city's neurosis about traffic.^[14][2][4]
3. (historical) Any disorder of the nervous system without organic cause.^[2][6][3]

Word family

• aeroneurosis
• neurotic
• neuroticism
• psychoneurosis
• anxiety neurosis
• compensation neurosis

Related words

• nerve
• neuron
• neuro-
• psychosis
• -osis

Usage notes

Collins labels the psychiatric sense as former, and records a looser use for any persistent preoccupation.^[14]

References

1. ^ a b 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 Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c d Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
11. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
12. ^ a b Stedman's Medical Dictionary, Baltimore: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
13. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins