cacoëthes
noun
an irresistible urge; mania.
cacoëthes
American
[kak-oh-ee-theez]
/ ˌkæk oʊˈi θiz /
Or
cacoethes
noun
cacoethes
British
/ ˌkækəʊˈiːθiːz /
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of cacoëthes
First recorded in 1555–65; from Latin, from Greek kakóēthes, neuter (used as noun) of kakoḗthēs “malignant,” literally, “of bad character”; see caco-, ethos
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
There were many things the kindly veteran would smooth over in order not to wound sensitive minds bitten with the cacoëthes scribendi.
From Victor Hugo: His Life and Works by G. Barnett Smith
It is a mode of paralysis—a cacoëthes tacendi—the one form that malady takes in me.
From Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde by Oscar Wilde
Remember that the slightest act of volition on your part can exalt my pecuniary status to the skies, as well as confer distinguished and unparagoned ennoblement upon your cacoëthes scribendi.
From Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. by F. Anstey
The cacoëthes scribendi is a disease common, not to imaginative, but to imitative, minds.
From Methods of Authors by Hugo Erichsen
His father designed him for the law, and he studied the institutes at the Philadelphia Law Academy, but like Schumann, he was spoiled for briefs by the stronger pull of music and the cacoëthes scribendi.
From A Book of Prefaces by H. L. (Henry Louis) Mencken
Most of us suffer in some degree From cacoethes loquendi, Yet some who deplore it at length seem to be Afflicted with ditto scribendi.
From Time Magazine Archive
But my physician informs me that I have got the "cacoethes scribendi," which he says is as bad as the small-pox, toothache, and yellow fever.
From Doesticks, What He Says by Q. K. Philander Doesticks
I do not believe that there are any cases of the cacoethes subscribendi.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 by Various
This cacoethes scribendi is the pest of every local curiosity or public watering-place.
From Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty Years with the Indian Tribes on the American Frontiers by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
If, however, I may mention my own small experience of this matter, literary talent, or at all events authorship, is hereditary, especially in these days of that general epidemic, the "cacoethes scribendi."
From My Life as an Author by Martin Farquhar Tupper
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
