noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A chronic eating disorder characterized by a binge-and-purge cycle: extreme overeating followed by self-induced vomiting. countable, uncountable

   "Grow up, Heather, bulimia is so '87."

2. 2
   pathologically insatiable hunger (especially when caused by brain lesions) wordnet
3. 3
   Excessive hunger. countable, obsolete, uncountable
4. 4
   a disorder of eating seen among young women who go on eating binges and then feel guilt and depression and self-condemnation wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

binge eating syndromebinge-eating syndromebulimia nervosabulimia nervosa

Example

More examples

"Tom was diagnosed with bulimia."

Etymology

PIE word *gʷṓws From Ancient Greek βουλιμία (boulimía, “ravenous hunger”), from βοῦς (boûs, “cow, ox”) + λῑμός (līmós, “hunger”).

Related phrases

academic bulimiaexercise bulimiaeating disorder

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