Dementia

//dɪˈmɛnʃə// noun

noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A progressive decline in cognitive function due to damage or disease in the brain beyond what might be expected from normal aging. Areas particularly affected include memory, attention, judgement, language and problem solving. uncountable, usually

    "Similar studies of rats have employed four different intracranial resorbable, slow sustained release systems— […]. Such a slow-release device containing angiogenic factors could be placed on the pia mater covering the cerebral cortex and tested in persons with senile dementia in long term studies."

  2. 2
    mental deterioration of organic or functional origin wordnet
  3. 3
    Madness or insanity. uncountable, usually

Synonyms

All synonyms
aberrationabnormalityalienationbrain damagebrainsicknessclouded mind

Example

More examples

"Although there was once believed to be a causative relationship between syphilis and artistic genius, I would hope that the vast majority of modern artists and writers are reasonable enough to avoid becoming infected just on the off chance that neurosyphilis dementia might improve the quality of their work."

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin dementia.

Related phrases

dementia cafédementia dialyticadementia paralyticadementia praecoxdementia precoxdementia pugilisticafamilial British dementiainfantile dementiaparalytic dementiasenile dementiasteroid dementiavascular dementia

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.