eleutheromania

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eleutheromania

(ɛˌljuːθərəʊˈmeɪnɪə)

a manic yearning for freedom

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

eleutheromania

Rare. a strong desire for freedom.

See also: Freedom

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freedom

References in periodicals archive ?

Babbitt calls "illness" the instinct to eliminate any limits--proposing the term eleutheromania (= "mad zeal for freedom"; eleutheros = "free"), examples of "eleuteromaniacs" being the following:

Babbitt (1910: 197) draws the conclusion that from the 19th century onwards the world fed upon the desire of a permanent revolt, all people having been affected by eleutheromania: being interested chiefly in rights, but not in duties, and tending increasingly more to be intransigent against limitations.

Romantic imagination thus pays a price: "the freer it becomes, the farther it gets away from reality." (Babbitt 1919: 109-110) This, then, is the price of romantic eleutheromania, the price for the romantics' zest for freedom.