Etymology: < post-classical Latin -mania and its etymon Hellenistic Greek -μανία excessive desire, mental illness (see mania n.); compare French -manie craze, mental illness. Compare -mane comb. form and -maniac comb. form.Hellenistic Greek -μανία was first used in compounds referring to grossly excessive desire, e.g. γυναικομανία for women, ἱππομανία for horses, παιδομανία for boys, χρυσομανία for gold (only in Byzantine Greek): these have seldom been borrowed into English (but compare hippomania n.). In later texts, it formed compounds referring to mental illness, e.g. ἐρωτομανία love-madness, μητρομανία hysteria, τυϕομανία delirium, some of which have been borrowed via French: see erotomania n. and typhomania n. Compounds with similar reference were formed in post-classical Latin and French, a few of which have been borrowed into English: see monomania n., nymphomania n. From the 17th cent. onwards the suffix -manie was used in French in the sense of a ‘craze’ or passion (e.g. for a nationality, a pursuit, or the collection of a class of objects); a number of 19th-cent. English words are borrowed from or modelled on French formations of this kind: see Anglomania n., bibliomania n., decalcomania n., metromania n.1, and potichomania n. This sense became fairly common in native formations. Compounds with this terminal element are attested in English from the early 17th cent. onwards. In the earliest formations the terminal element is found in the forms -manie and, more rarely, -many (e.g. demonomany n., sepulchromany n.: compare manie n.). Such forms occasionally occur later as variants of -mania compounds based on French models, and in one or two cases, as the only English forms (e.g. Vitremanie n.). The few compounds first attested in the 17th cent. have Latin and Greek first elements; all appear to have been formed in English (e.g. idolomania n. at idolo- comb. form ), apart from the French loanword demonomany n. Most of the 18th-cent. compounds are formations in English based on initial combining elements of Latin or Greek origin, though several are formed after French models (e.g. bibliomania n.). Important exceptions include nymphomania n., which originated in post-classical Latin, and two early formations with an English word as first element, balloonomania n. and tulipomania n. at tulip n. Derivatives. About two-thirds of all words with this terminal element are first attested in the 19th cent., nearly all of them formations in English. Most are formed either with Greek first elements or with initial combining forms; there are also some based on English words, most of them occurring only once (an exception being morphinomania n.). Most compounds formed since 1900 are of infrequent occurrence. Since the late 18th cent. noun compounds with mania n. as the second element have become common (e.g. persecution mania n. at persecution n. Compounds 2). Formations in which -mania , without a medial connecting vowel, is compounded with an English word (e.g. squandermania n.) or a proper name (e.g. Beatlemania n. at Beatle n. Derivatives) are perhaps to be classified with these rather than treated as examples of the combining form (contrast, e.g., scribbleomania at scribblemania n. α. forms with β. forms at scribblemania n.).
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2000; most recently modified version published online December 2018).
comb. form