pedophilia

Etymology

It is formed from English pedo- + -philia,^[2][3] and the British spelling paedophilia is formed with paedo-;^[4] Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com label it a New Latin formation.^[5][6][3] The first element is from the Greek word for "child",^[2] and -philia is from Ancient Greek φιλία (philía, “friendship, fondness”).^[7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

An abnormal, especially sexual, attraction to young children: first attested in 1900, in an abstract of a report by Krafft-Ebing.^[2] Merriam-Webster dates the word to 1906, Dictionary.com to 1905–10, and the Shorter Oxford to the early 20th century.^[5][3][4]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept its clinical sense of a sexual attraction of adults to children.^[2][5][9] In legal usage it can also mean the act of molesting a child.^[10] The words for a person with the condition followed: pedophile as an adjective by 1913 and as a noun by 1951,^[2] and pedophiliac from the mid-20th century.^[4]

Timeline

• 1900 – a sexual attraction to young children.^[2]
• 1913 – the adjective pedophile.^[2]
• 1951 – the noun pedophile, a person with this attraction.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. (psychiatry) A paraphilia in which an adult is sexually attracted to children, especially prepubescent children.^[5][9][11]
2. (law) The act of molesting a child sexually.^[10]

Word family

• pedophiliac

Related words

• pedophile
• pederasty
• -philia

Usage notes

The spelling pedophilia is chiefly American, and paedophilia is the usual British form.^[11][4] Etymonline prefers paed-, which avoids confusion with the ped- meaning "foot" and the one meaning "soil".^[2] Black's Law Dictionary notes that pedophilia need not involve intercourse, and contrasts it with pederasty.^[10]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
7. ^ Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
10. ^ a b c Garner, Bryan A., ed. (2004), Black's Law Dictionary, 8th ed., St. Paul, Minn.: Thomson West
11. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins