3

Addiction, addict and addicted... what are these words in Esperanto?

I found dependi and manio, but I believe those concepts are completely different. A baby can be dependent on its mother, and an old man on his medicine, but an addiction is a different thing. Mania immidiately makes me think of bipolar disease, but I know it is used in English also more generally, for an extreme or excessive enthusiasm. It carries a nuance of insanity.

When I looked through PIV there was no sign below either of the roots that they are used when talking about things like drugs, alcohol and gambling. The defintitions didn't change my former impression of which concepts they represent.

What do you say?

2 Answers 2

2

When I looked through PIV there was no sign below either of the roots that they are used when talking about things like drugs, alcohol and gambling

I can see very clear signs of just that. Take a look at http://vortaro.net/#manio:

toksomanio Vd tokso.

If you follow the link, you will see:

toksiĝemulo. toksomaniulo.

toksomanio. Kutima k ekscesa uzado, per ingesto aŭ injekto, de toksoj, pli speciale de drogoj, ekz. alkoholo, kokaino, morfino, nikotino, opiaj alkaloidoj: toksomanio estas ofte noca k estigas alkutimiĝon k psikan k/aŭ korpan dependecon.

toksomaniulo. Malsanulo trafita de toksomanio.

Toksomanio looks like the word for “drug addiction”, and “an addict” would be toksiĝemulo or toksomaniulo. I haven't found the word for “addicted”, but we can analyse the word toksiĝ-em-ul-o as “a person with an inclination to ingest toxic substances”, so toksiĝema should mean “with an inclination to ingest toxic substances”, that is, “addicted”.

Note that Google doesn't give any results for toksiĝema, so there may be some other possibilities. And all these tokso- words are about the addiction to drugs and other substances. If you want to talk about addiction to gambling, Internet, porn, etc. you'll need to combine other words with -em-, manio and/or dependeco.

2
  • Ah, I didn't follow the link to the page based on the root tokso. My bad, thank you. Do you have any suggestions for addict and addicted? If so, could you add that to make this answer complete? Commented Nov 12, 2016 at 23:30
  • @AntoniaMontaro I updated my answer.
    – miĥaŭ
    Commented Nov 13, 2016 at 0:20
2

On the other hand, there's nothing in vortaro.net to suggest that it can't be applied to drug addiction.

  • manio Fortega nenormala konstanta inklino al io

I note that this is also the word listed in Benson (CEED) for addiction.

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.