May 2007

In Case You Were Wondering

Soon after Don Imus made the news last month, the words misogyny and misogynist began receiving a significant number of look-ups. Misogyny names a hatred of women and misogynist names a person who hates women, but do similar terms exist for the hatred of men?

In case you were wondering, misandry is the word for "hatred of men." Misogyny and misandry both come from Greek, where misos means "hatred"; gyne means "woman"; and andr- means "man." But while misogyny dates to the mid-17th century, misandry didn't appear in print until the early 20th century and wasn't added to the dictionary until a few years ago. As for misanthrope (anthropos means "mankind" in Greek), that all-inclusive term meaning "hatred of mankind" dates to the latter part of the 17th century.