victimology means the study of the victims of crime, and especially of the reasons some people are more prone to be victims. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 86 out of 100.
victimology is pronounced /ˌvɪktɪˈmɒləd͡ʒi/.
Why “victimology” is a great word
VICTIMOLOGY — [Noun] The study of victims of crime and the psychological or social factors in victimization, or the tendency to perceive oneself as a perpetual victim. From French victimologie (1956), from victime ("victim") + -logie ("-logy, study of"). First attested in English in 1958. Unlike criminology, which maps the broader terrain of crime and punishment, or martyrdom, which sanctifies suffering for a cause, victimology zeroes in on the human crater left by the impact. It is the careful piecing together of a survivor's testimony, the cold statistical clustering of misfortune in a postal code, and the quiet, insistent narrative one rehearses alone in the mirror: a field built from empathy that now furnishes a script for the perpetually powerless.
noun
- The study of the victims of crime, and especially of the reasons some people are more prone to be victims.
- The attitude of seeing oneself as a victim, especially in a way that is self-absorbed or indulgent.“The whole thing has rotted into a festival of bad faith and victimology, those twin markers of the Trump-Twitter Decade: rather an irony for a show organized under the sign of friendship.”