pyromania
[pahy-ruh-mey-nee-uh, -meyn-yuh]
- a compulsion to set things on fire.
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Origin of pyromania
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for pyromaniac
Contemporary Examples
“My gut is telling me it is a pyromaniac having a good time and likes watching the buildings burn,” he says.
Historical Examples
They could not feel worse if they learned that the child was a thief or a pyromaniac.
WomanWilliam J. Robinson
pyromania
- psychiatry the uncontrollable impulse and practice of setting things on fire
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for pyromaniac
adj.
1855, from pyromania. As a noun from 1861.
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pyromania
n.
1840, from pyro- "fire" + mania "madness, frenzy." Used in German in the 1830s.
The propensity which leads an insane person to accomplish his purpose by burning, has been considered to merit particular notice, and to constitute a variety of monomania. Dr. Marc, of France, has published a memoir on the subject; he gives the name of pyromania to it, and considers that, like other insane propensities, it may be the result of instinct, or it may be the result of delusion--reasoning upon erroneous principles. [Alexander Morrison, M.D., "The Physiognomy of Mental Diseases," London, 1840]
An older word for it was incendiarism.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
pyromania
(pī′rō-mā′nē-ə, -mān′yə)- An uncontrollable impulse to start fires.
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The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
pyromania
[(peye-roh-may-nee-uh)]
An uncontrollable urge to set fires.
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The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.