-holic

See also: holič

English

Alternative forms

• -aholic, -oholic

Etymology

Back-formation from alcoholic.

Suffix

-holic

1. suffix interchangeable when describing any part of one’s liberal behavior or numerous acts in excess or binge behavior bordering a diagnosable mental disorder by medical and psychological standards. Repetition and disregard for anything outweighing subject (prefix)-coholic become integral then diagnosed as addiction
2. Denotes addiction to the substance or activity of the stem word.
   • 2017, David Friend, The Naughty Nineties:

     Trump was also a horndog, a braggart, and a social-media-holic—just like voters were.

Usage notes

• The form -holic is usually used with words already ending with vowels. For stems ending with consonants, the phonetically pleasant forms -aholic or -oholic may be more common.
• 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.
• There are other more formal terms for such addictions, many uncommonly used. For example, dipsomania, a medico-legal term for alcoholism, is used less than 1% as often as "alcoholism" in a large sample of academic writing over the last 20 years; 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

Derived terms

English terms suffixed with -holic

Anagrams

• choil, choli