" dipsomaniac "

[Noun]  | "dip*so*ma*nia" | \ ˌdip-sə-ˈmā-nē-ə \

1: an uncontrollable craving for alcoholic liquors

Origin: circa 1844 ;

 Borrowed from German Dipsomanie, from Greek dípsa "thirst" (of uncertain origin) + German -o- {see: |-o-|-o-} + -manie {see: |-mania|-mania};

  * Note : The German word was coined by the physician and writer Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland (1762-1836) in the preface to Ueber die Trunksucht und eine rationelle Heilmethode derselben (Berlin, 1819) by the Moscow physician C. von Brühl-Cramer. Hufeland intended the word as an approximate equivalent of German Trunksucht: "Er [Brühl-Cramer] zeigt, wie die böse Gewohnheit am Ende eine eigne Krankheit, die Trunksucht, hervorbringt, welche die meiste Analogie mit der Nymphomanie hat, und daher nicht unpassend nosologisch Dipsomanie genannt werden könnte …" ("He [Brühl-Cramer] shows how the bad habit produces in the end an actual disease, Trunksucht, which is most nearly comparable with nymphomania, and thus not unfittingly could be named nosologically dipsomania.");

[Noun]  | "dipsomaniac"