Why Do People Think “oholic” Is a Suffix for Addiction?

Question by Gregory Valentini: Why do people think “oholic” is a suffix for addiction?
If someone is addicted to alcohol they are called an alcoholic, why? Because the suffix “ic” is from the Latin adjectival ending -icus, -ica, -icum. Which means “pertaining to” or “characteristic of. So a person who is an alcoholic is a person characterized by alcohol.

“ohol” comes from alcohol. It is not a suffix.

So shouldn’t people say “workic” for someone who loves working, or “rageic” for someone who loves to be enraged? etc…?

Best answer:

Answer by Morgan
In contemporary modern English “-holic” is a suffix that can be added to a subject to denote an addiction to it. The term is derived from alcoholism, one of the first addictions to be widely identified both medically and socially.

Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!

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