Also written as * halucinari, the Latin verb from which the term hallucination is derived. The terms alucinari and halucinari probably came into use during the first century AD. At the time, these words had the connotation of wandering mentally or being absent-minded. They have their root in the Greek verb aluein, which means to wander, to be distraught, to be beside oneself, or to be outrageous. It has been speculated that the word ending -cinari mightstemfromthe Latin verb vaticinari, which means to rave. As the American neuroanatomist Fred H. Johnson says, "Hallucination is an appropriate medical word, and it is more than a coincidence that 'to wander in mind' is the meaning of alucinari from which is derived hallucinatus and the term hallucination. The ending cinari is due to the influence of vaticinari, meaning to rave, and comes onomatopoet-ically from the hooting of owls and at first indicates behavior like that of night birds, such as an oil bird."
References
Johnson, F.H. (1978). The anatomy of hallucinations. Chicago, IL: Nelson-Hall.
Stone, M.H. (1997). Healing the mind. A history of Psychiatry from antiquity to the present. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company.
Dictionary of Hallucinations. J.D. Blom. 2010.