Apotemnophilia

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A psychological disorder characterized by the intense and long-standing desire for amputation of a specific limb. uncountable
  2. 2
    A compulsion to become, or appear to be, an amputee. uncountable

    "This paper seeks to present information on apotemnophilia. It points out the need of a man to have a healthy leg amputated, despite the fact that he cannot find a surgeon who will do so."

Synonyms

All synonyms
acrotomophilia

Example

More examples

"This paper seeks to present information on apotemnophilia. It points out the need of a man to have a healthy leg amputated, despite the fact that he cannot find a surgeon who will do so."

Etymology

Coined in a paper in 1977 by J. Money et al. in the Journal of Sex Research,http://www.jstor.org/pss/3811894, from Ancient Greek ἀπό (apó, “away”) + τέμνω (témnō, “cut”) + -philia.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.