Page 383 - Word Power Made Easy: The Complete Handbook for Building a Superior Vocabulary

kleptomaniac, for reasons that psychologists are still arguing about, is more often a female

than a male, and may pinch her best friend’s valueless trinket, or a cheap ashtray or salt
shaker from a restaurant, not because she wants, let alone needs, the article, but because
she apparently can’t help herself; she gets carried away. (When she arrives home, she may
toss it in a drawer with other loot, and never look at it again.)
Can you write (and correctly pronounce) the adjective?

3. pyromania (pī′-rƏ-MAY′-nee-Ə)—morbid compulsion to set res. Pyromania should not be
confused with incendiarism (in-SEN′-dee-Ə-riz-Əm), which is the malicious and deliberate

burning of another’s property, and is not a compulsive need to see the ames and enjoy the
thrill of the heat and the smoke. Some pyromaniacs join volunteer re companies, often
heroically putting out the very blazes they themselves have set. An incendiary (in-SEN′-dee-
air-ee) is antisocial, and usually sets res for revenge. Either of these two dangerous

characters is called, colloquially, a “firebug.”
In law, setting re to another’s, or to one’s own, property for the purpose of economic
gain (such as the collection of the proceeds of an insurance policy) is called arson (AHR′-
sƏn) and is a felony. The pyromaniac sets re for the thrill; the incendiary for revenge; the
arsonist (AHR′-sƏ-nist) for money.

Pyromania is built on Greek pyros, re; incendiarism on Latin incendo, incensus, to set re;
arson on Latin ardo, arsus, to burn.
Can you write, and pronounce, the adjective form of pyromaniac? __________________.

4 . megalomania (meg′-Ə-lƏ-MAY′-nee-Ə)—morbid delusions of grandeur, power,
importance, godliness, etc. Jokes accusing the heads of governments of megalomania are
common. Here’s an old chestnut from the forties:

Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin were talking about their dreams.

Churchill: I dreamed last night that God had made me Prime Minister of the whole
world.
Roosevelt: I dreamed that God had made me President of the whole world.
Stalin: How could you gentlemen have such dreams? I didn’t dream of o ering you
those positions!

Hitler, Napoleon, and Alexander the Great have been called megalomaniacs—all three
certainly had delusions about their invincibility.
Can you write (and pronounce correctly!) the adjective derived from megalomaniac?

__________________.
Megalomania is built on Greek megas, great, big, large, plus mania.
[Can you think of the word for what someone speaks through to make the sound (phone)
of his voice greater? __________________.

5 . nymphomania (nim′-fƏ-MAY′-nee-Ə)—morbid, incessant, uncontrollable, and intense
desire, on the part of a female, for sexual intercourse (from Greek nymphe, bride, plus

mania).
The person? __________________.