1854, "voracious;" see bulimia + -ic. The meaning "suffering from bulimia nervosa" is recorded from 1977. The noun in this sense ("person suffering from bulimia nervosa") is from 1980.
Entries linking to bulimic
bulimia n.
"emotional disorder consisting of food-gorging alternating with purging or fasting, accompanied by morbid concern with body weight and shape," 1976, Modern Latin, from Greek boulimia, "ravenous hunger" as a disease, literally "ox-hunger," from bou-, intensive prefix (originally from bous "ox;" from PIE root *gwou- "ox, bull, cow") + limos "hunger," from PIE *leie- "to waste away."
As a psychological disorder, technically bulemia nervosa. Englished form boulimy, bulimy was used from late 14c. in a medical sense of "morbidly ravishing hunger, disease causing the patient to have an insatiable hunger for food."
-ic
Middle English -ik, -ick, word-forming element making adjectives, "having to do with, having the nature of, being, made of, caused by, similar to," from French -ique and directly from Latin -icus or from cognate Greek -ikos "in the manner of; pertaining to." From PIE adjective suffix *-(i)ko, which also yielded Slavic -isku, adjectival suffix indicating origin, the source of the -sky (Russian -skii) in many surnames. In chemistry, indicating a higher valence than names in -ous (first in benzoic, 1791).
In Middle English and after often spelled -ick, -ike, -ique. Variant forms in -ick (critick, ethick) were common in early Modern English and survived in English dictionaries into early 19c. This spelling was supported by Johnson but opposed by Webster, who prevailed.