The story
- Proto-Indo-European*speḱ-
- Proto-Indo-European*spéḱyeti
- Proto-Hellenic*sképt͏̌omai
- Ancient Greekσκέπτομαι (sképtomai)
- Ancient Greekσκοπός (skopós)
- Proto-Indo-European*bʰil-
- Proto-Indo-European*bʰil-o-s
- Ancient Greekφῐ́λος (phĭ́los)
- Ancient Greekφῐλῐ́ᾱ (phĭlĭ́ā)
- English todayscopophilia
From Ancient Greek σκοπός (skopós, “watcher”) + English -philia. First attested in the 1920s. The alternative spellings scoptophilia and skoptophilia originated as mistakes in the translations of the works of Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud (1856–1939).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.