What does bulimy mean?
Bulimy is an obsolete or rare English noun meaning an excessive, insatiable hunger, and historically also the eating disorder that modern medicine calls bulimia. The word derives from the Greek boulimia, formed from bous ("ox") and limos ("hunger") — literally an "ox-like" appetite too large for any meal to satisfy. In earlier centuries, physicians used bulimy to describe patients gripped by pathological ravenousness, and it survives mainly in historical medical texts and discussions of word origins. Today the standard spelling is bulimia, which refers both to extreme hunger in general and, specifically, to the serious eating disorder involving cycles of bingeing and purging. Because bulimy is so seldom encountered, using it signals either deliberate archaism or reference to older sources; readers encountering it should understand it as an earlier form of the familiar clinical term rather than a distinct condition.
nounAn obsolete or rare variant of "bulimia": a pathologically insatiable hunger, or the eating disorder now more commonly known by that name.
- Excessive, insatiable hunger (historical/general sense).
- The eating disorder characterized by bingeing and purging, now standardly called bulimia (the term "bulimy" appears chiefly in older texts).
"The old medical text described patients suffering from bulimy, tormented by a hunger no meal could satisfy."
"Physicians of the seventeenth century recorded cases of bulimy in which sufferers consumed enormous quantities of food without relief."
"In her history of eating disorders, she traced how the older spelling bulimy gradually gave way to the modern term bulimia."
Rarely pluralized; the word normally functions as an uncountable mass noun referring to the condition in general.
"Early casebooks recorded several distinct bulimies among institutionalized patients."
"Bulimy" literally means "ox-hunger" in Greek — an appetite as bottomless as an ox's — which is why the word survived centuries before settling into its modern spelling, bulimia.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of bulimy
Bulimy comes from the Greek boulimia, a compound of bous ("ox") and limos ("hunger"), evoking an appetite as vast as an ox's. The term passed into Latin and then into European medical vocabulary, entering English as a name for pathological ravenousness. Over time the spelling settled into "bulimia," leaving "bulimy" as a largely historical variant found chiefly in older medical writing.
Related word forms
How bulimy is actually used
"Bulimy" is archaic or very rare in contemporary English; writers today use "bulimia." It may still appear in historical medical literature or etymological discussion, where it carries a scholarly, dated flavor rather than any clinical precision.
Easily confused with bulimy
"Bulimy" is simply an older or rarer variant spelling of the same condition; "bulimia" is the standard modern term for both insatiable hunger and the eating disorder.