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Thursday word: nympholepsy
Jul. 27th, 2017 10:54 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
prettygoodword.livejournal.comnympholepsy (NIM-fuh-lep-see) - n., a frenzy of emotion, as for something unattainable.
Sometimes, thanks to Nabokov, this is specifically associated with a Lolita complex, but in general it can be any object of desire. Coined in 1774 from the older word nympholept, meaning a person is such a frenzy, using the model of epilepsy; nympholept in turn is from Greek nympholēptos, frenzy, literally caught by nymphs (nymphē + lambanein, to seize). So when a young person has had an encounter with an unreachable nature divinity and seized with longing.
---L.
Sometimes, thanks to Nabokov, this is specifically associated with a Lolita complex, but in general it can be any object of desire. Coined in 1774 from the older word nympholept, meaning a person is such a frenzy, using the model of epilepsy; nympholept in turn is from Greek nympholēptos, frenzy, literally caught by nymphs (nymphē + lambanein, to seize). So when a young person has had an encounter with an unreachable nature divinity and seized with longing.
---L.
