-holism
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also holism
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[edit] English
[edit] Etymology
In contemporary modern English "-holism" is a suffix that can be added to a subject to denote an addiction to it. The suffix was extracted from alcoholism, one of the first addictions to be widely identified both medically and socially.
It should be noted that the word alcoholism is broken up into the root, "alcohol", and the suffix "-ism", not "alco" and "-holism". The suffix "-holism" is thus a result of false splitting.
[edit] Suffix
-holism
- a form of addiction, either physical dependency or obsessive dependency.
[edit] Usage notes
The term "-holism" is not an accepted medical term, but is a fairly prominent neologism.
