dysmorphia
noun
dysmorphia is a noun meaning “dysmorphism” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled D-Y-S-M-O-R-P-H-I-A, and it appears about once in every 11 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of dysmorphia is dysmorphias.
What does dysmorphia mean?
noun
- 1
dysmorphism
- 2
Any of various psychological disorders of distorted body image in which a person inaccurately believes that their body is misshapen or inadequate, such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia, and muscle dysmorphia ("bigorexia").
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of dysmorphia
- dysmorphias plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is dysmorphia?
Dysmorphia appears about once in every 11 million words in written English, the 100,430th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Dysmorphia in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense dysmorphia:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | dysmorphophobie |
| German | Dysmorphophobie |
| Spanish | dismorfofobia |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does dysmorphia come from?
From Ancient Greek δυσμορφίᾱ (dusmorphíā, “misshapenness, ugliness”), from δυσ- (dus-, “bad, mal-”) + μορφή (morphḗ, “shape, form”) + -ίᾱ (-íā). Note that sense 2 is a semantic extension from "physical deformity" to a disorder of the perception of one’s bodily form. By surface analysis, dys- + -morph + -ia.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).