• Pedophilia

    Pronunciation

    • UK IPA: /ËŒpiː.dəˈfɪ.li.É™/Rhymes: -ɪliÉ™
    • US IPA: /ËŒpÉ›.dəˈfiː.li.É™/

    Alternative forms

    Origin

    From Ancient Greek παιδόφιλος, from παῖς (pais, "boy, child") and φιλέω (phileō, "I love"). Equivalent to pedo- + -philia.

    Full definition of pedophilia

    Noun

    pedophilia

    (usually uncountable; plural pedophilias)
    1. Sexual or erotic feelings or desires directed by adults and late adolescents towards children; particularly, in psychiatry, a paraphilia consisting of a primary adult sexual attraction to prepubescent children. from 20th c.
      • 2004, Ronald J. Comer, Fundamentals of abnormal psychology, page 341:Some people with pedophilia are attracted only to children; others are attracted to adults as well (APA, 2000, 1994).
      • 2007, Margaret Mary Wright, Judicial decision making in child sexual abuse cases, page 122:As noted earlier, pedophilia was cited as both an aggravating and a mitigating circumstance by trial judges, as was the absence of pedophilia.
      • 2009, Ann Kring, Sheri Johnson, Gerald C. Davison, Abnormal Psychology:Sometimes a man with pedophilia is content to stroke the child's hair, but he may also manipulate the child's genitalia, ...
    2. Sexual activity between adults and (prepubescent) children.
      • 1998, Andrew L. Kaufman, Cardozo (ISBN 0674096452), page 25:Fifteen months later, a committee of the congregation found that he had sexually abused several boys within the congregation. ... The fact that Alger committed pedophilia at the age of thirty-four casts a shadow over his subsequent yearning for relationships with boys and young men, but there is no evidence of any later misconduct.
      • 2005, Carol Weiss Lewis, Stuart Gilman, The ethics challenge in public service: a problem-solving guide, page 88:Entire books have been written about the role of scandal in US politics (Garment, 1992). Offenses include smoking marijuana, hiring illegal aliens, plagiarizing, sexually harassing others, engaging in pedophilia, ...
      • 2009, Nancy Cavender, Howard Kahane, Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric: The Use of Reason in Everyday Life, page 309:It's quite another (a bad idea) to expect amateurs to figure out who is telling the truth about Iraq, or which priests have committed pedophilia.

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