Etymology

rhinotillexomania

Today it means: Compulsive nose-picking; the insertion of a finger into one's nose. Full definition →

Ancient Greek τίλλω
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Ancient Greek · derived fromτίλλω“to pluck or pull”
  2. English todayrhinotillexomania

From rhino- (“nose, nasal”) + Latin tillexis (“habit of plucking”, see below) + -o- + -mania (“obsession”). The tillexis stem is seemingly a New Latin borrowing from Ancient Greek τίλλω (tíllō, “to pluck or pull”). There is a divergence regarding the exo affix. It is suggested it may derive from ἔξω (éxō, “out”) or έξη (éxē, “habit”).

Words from the same roots

Ancient Greekτίλλω all →

trichotillomania

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.