drapetomania
drapetomania noun: the desire of slaves to run away, viewed as a mental illness.
Noun
drapetomania (uncountable)
- The desire of slaves to run away, viewed as a mental illness.
- To prevent the full-blown development of drapetomania, exhibited by the actual running away of the slave, whipping is recommended as medical therapy; in a revealing allusion to its historical origins, the treatment is called "whipping the devil out of them."1987, Thomas Stephen Szasz, Insanity: The Idea and Its Consequences, →ISBN, page 307
- Over the years, psychiatrists have quite properly rejected many other "disorders" that reflected earlier cultural prejudices, such as drapetomania, lack of vaginal orgasm, childhood masturbation disorder, masochism, and nymphomania (Wakefield, 1992).1996, Carole Wade, Carol Tavris, Psychology, →ISBN, page 560
- An overwhelming urge to run away (from home, a bad situation, responsibility, etc.).
- One of these is a supposed form of mental disease, termed by him "Drapetomania, which, like a malady that cats are liable to, manifests itself by an irrestrainable propensity to run away."1857, The London Lancet
- I thought I was a hypochondriac because my friends said that I was showing unnecessary concern about my health. Thanks to Dr. Cartwright I now know that I am a diseased man. I suffer from the acute stages of a chronic disease: drapetomania. I have the obsessive desire to run toward freedom. You...1989, David Pilgrim, Race relations "above the veil": speeches, essays, and other writings
drapetomania meaning in Tamil
drapetomania in Tamil
- தப்பிக்கும் மனப்பாங்கு
Examples of drapetomania in a sentence
- Forbidding alcohol, eliminating visits to neighbors at night, and withholding adequate food, shelter, and clothing also were measures taken to prevent drapetomania.2008, Frederick T. Leong, Encyclopedia of Counseling - Volume 2, →ISBN:
- I suffer from the acute stages of a chronic disease: drapetomania.1989, David Pilgrim, Race relations "above the veil": speeches, essays, and other writings:
- Faking something close to drapetomania, ...1997, Mark Waugh, Come:
Origin of drapetomania
Coined in 1851 by Samuel A. Cartwright as a name for a supposed mental illness that caused black slaves to flee captivity. Ancient Greek δραπέτης (drapétēs, “runaway slave”) + μανία (manía, “madness”).
Questions about drapetomania
- What does drapetomania mean?
- Drapetomania means the desire of slaves to run away, viewed as a mental illness.
- What is drapetomania in Tamil?
- Drapetomania in Tamil is தப்பிக்கும் மனப்பாங்கு. See Drapetomania meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use drapetomania in a sentence?
- Forbidding alcohol, eliminating visits to neighbors at night, and withholding adequate food, shelter, and clothing also were measures taken to prevent drapetomania.
- What part of speech is drapetomania?
- Drapetomania is a noun.
Words near drapetomania in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: drapetomania (page history and authors); drapetomania (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “drapetomania.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/drapetomania. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.