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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

paralysis.

The complete loss of voluntary control of part of a living body, such as one or more limbs.

9 characters4 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/pəˈɹæləsəs/US
  1. The complete loss of voluntary control of part of a living body, such as one or more limbs.

    countable · uncountable
  2. A state of being unable to act.

    countable · uncountable
    The government has been in a paralysis since it lost its majority in the parliament.
Where this word comes from

Borrowed from Latin paralysis, from Ancient Greek παράλυσις (parálusis, “palsy”), from παραλύω (paralúō, “to disable on one side”). By surface analysis, para- + -lysis. Doublet of palsy.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.