- bipolar
- 1810 with fig. sense of "of double aspect;" 1859 with reference to physiology, from bi- + polar.
- bipolar
- 1859, "having two poles," from bi- + polar. Psychiatric use in ref. to what had been called manic-depressive psychosis is said to have begun 1957 with Ger. psychiatrist Karl Leonhard. The term became popular early 1990s. Bipolar disorder was in DSM III (1980).