Wednesday Words (10)

Each Wednesday I present to you a loveable word and what it means. These are words that look or sound pleasing. This week I’m choosing one of my own favourite words…

Megalomaniacal.

What a silly number of syllables this word has! Once you’ve worked out how to say it (click here and then on the speaker symbol next to the word to hear it spoken), it trips off the tongue so beautifully. It describes someone who has an excessive lust for power and/or illusions that they are more powerful than they are. Somebody suffering from megalomania as a mental illness may have delusions of grandeur and tend to exaggerate everything about themselves. It is a modern word made by combining megalo- (from the Greek meaning big or grand) and mania (a wild/violent mental disorder or obsessive interest, madness).