# mermaidism
## English
### Etymology

From mermaid +‎ -ism.

### Noun

mermaidism (uncountable)
* The condition of being a mermaid.
** 2004, Mark I. Pinsky, The Gospel according to Disney: Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust, page 142:There is an understanding that differences of culture, faith, and traditions can create barriers to a successful relationship. And since Prince Eric cannot 'convert' to mermaidism, she converts.
** 2018 November, Heather Magda Serrano, “The Little Mermaid and Houseboats”, in Houseboat Magazine:With Tami’s growing success in professional mermaidism and being able to live on a houseboat on the water, she feels right at home and completely in her element.
** 2020, Fred Saberhagen, Farslayer's Story:From what he has to say, it seems that mermaidism produced by magic ought to be a very easy thing to cure.
** 2022, Sacha Black, Trey:Mermaidism is a matriarchal gene carried on the female chromosome.
* A love of or obsession with mermaid lore and paraphernalia.
** 1922, John Paris, Kimono, page 36:Really it was time to put an end to lunch picnics and mermaidism.
** 2007, Canadian Book Review Annual, page 273:[…] of "mermaidism" in other women, and even selects her clothing and accessories to enhance her connection to the tailed beings.
** 2016 September 1, Taylor Prewitt, Sarah Teveldal, “One Nation, Under Water: Mermaids of Texas”, in Tribeza:For Sirenalia’s clients, mermaidism is a way to be their best selves. People who buy the tails and participate in the culture aren’t just fascinated by mermaids.
* The belief in mermaids as real creatures.
** 1861 December 7, “Science: Review of The Romance of Natural History By Philip Henry Gosse.”, in The Athenæum, number 1780, page 769:The Miscellany of Natural History would have been a more appropriate title,—for what romance can be found in the absurdities of mermaidism or in the “self-immured,” to wit, “Mr. Bartlett's toad, Mr. Bree's toad, Mr. Smith's toad, Mr. Clark's toad," and the toads of other respectable gentlemen.
** 1919, The Nation - Volume 25, page 100:Mermaidism, which lifted up its voice in the correspondence columns of the NATION a few weeks ago, has no sound basis in history.
** 2024, Michael J. Altman, Erik Kline, Dana Lloyd, American Examples, page 146:I find "Irenaeus's" choice of penname curious because, asde from Millerism, neither mesmerism nor "mermaidism" is heretical in the usual sense of the word.
* Synonym of sirenomelia
** 1949, Carl Dame Clarke, Illustration: Its Technique and Application to the Sciences, page 32:There is either elephantiasis or dropsy of the left leg, and some disease or accident has resulted in a sort of mermaidism of the right.
** 1972, The First Conference on the Clinical Delineation of Birth Defects, volume 8 issue 2, page 77:It is also of interest that there are 12 cases with radial aplasia and four cases with esophageal atresia among some 200 case reports of sirenomelia, or mermaidism, a severe anomaly of postaxial mesoderm which always includes imperforate anus and lower vertebral defects.
** 2016, Kate Noson, “That Hateful Tail: The Sirena as Figure for Disability in Italian Literature and Beyond”, in California Italian Studies, volume 6, number 1:The medicalization of Santamato’s mermaid body, which necessitates this separation of her legs, recalls a surgical procedure conducted in cases of what is known as “sirenomelia,” also called Mermaid Syndrome or “mermaidism.”
** 2020, Peter D Turnpenny, Sian Ellard, Ruth Cleaver, Emery's Elements of Medical Genetics, page 240:Malformations that occur most commonly in such infants include congenital heart disease, nerual tube defects, vertebral segmentation defects and sacral agenesis, femoral hypoplasia, holoprosencephaly, and sirenomelia ("mermaidism”).
* The condition of being partly one thing and partly another; hybridism.
** 1854 July, “Obstacles to Revivals”, in The Freewill Baptist Quarterly, volume 2, page 306:But, furthermore, the true Revival of pure Religion, is meeting at this day a still more fearful obstacle, in the system of go-betweenity or theological mermaidism, which has arisen out of the ashes of old defunct infidelity, and is boasting its able champions.
** 1954, The Bucknell Review, page 20:As for the competing attractions of the Church, there was certainly a rise in what might be called ecclesiastical mermaidism at this period — that is , an increased interest in the superficial and non-communicative aspects of religious ceremonial, in ritual and vestments for their own sake, in Church art not as a living thing internally determined but as a self-conscious copy of the living art of another period: Hudson River Gothic, in a word.
** 2020, Monika Rudaś-Grodzka, “Mermaidism. The poetry of Julia Fiedorczuk”, in Lingue e Linguaggi, volume 37:In it, I introduce the category of mermaidism, which is connected with hybridism; it is the creative foundation for poetry which opposes the forces of unification, bonding, thinking of continuum and symmetry.