-holism

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Distinguish from the word holism, which describes properties of systems.

In contemporary modern English "-holic" is a suffix that can be added to a subject to denote an addiction to it. The term is derived 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". Moreover, the morphemic breakdown of the word "alcohol" is from Arabic al meaning "the" and kuhul meaning "paint". The suffix "-holism" is thus a result of false splitting similar to the interpretation of "helicopter" as "heli-copter" rather than the etymologically correct "helico-pter", giving rise to such derived words as "heliport" and "jetcopter"^[1].

In fact, there are correct medico-legal terms for such addictions. Dipsomania is the medico-legal term for alcoholism^[2]; other examples are given in the following table.

Colloquial term	Addiction to	Medico-legal term
danceaholic	dance	choreomania
workaholic	work	ergomania
sexaholic	sex	erotomania, satyromania, nymphomania
sugarholic	sugar	saccharomania
chocoholic	chocolate

The term "-holism" is not an accepted medical term, but is a fairly prominent neologism. As such, despite its widespread usage, it lacks a formal definition. The term can be used in many ways ranging from describing a physical or psychological dependency to something (ex. sexaholism^[3][4]), to a tendency to do something obsessively (ex. workaholism^[5], shopaholism^[6]). "-Holism" can also be used by someone to express a strong passion for or interest in something. For example, professional wrestler Chris Jericho would refer to his fans as Jerichoholics^[7].

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