Etymology
The term comes from the Ancient Greek: ἔφηβος (ephebos) variously defined as "one arrived at puberty", "a youth of eighteen who underwent his dokimasia and was registered as a citizen (Athens)", and "arriving at man's estate;" and φιλία (-philia) "love". It has been used by Dutch psychologist Frits Bernard as far back as 1950, reprinted in 1960 in the gay support magazine Vriendschap under the pseudonym Victor Servatius, crediting the origin of the term to Magnus Hirschfeld though giving no exact date.
The term has been described by Frenchman Félix Buffière in 1980 and Pakistani scholar Tariq Rahman, who argued that "ephebophilia" should be used in preference to "homosexuality" when describing the aesthetic and erotic interest of adult men in adolescent boys in classical Persian, Turkish or Urdu literature.
Read more about this topic: Ephebophilia
Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
—Giambattista Vico (1688–1744)
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)