Echolalia
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The involuntary repetitive echoing of words or phrases spoken by another person; either immediate or delayed. countable, uncountable
"Their echolalic responses may be much more extensive than the single words or short phrases that are characteristic of normal echolalia. Thus, a pseudoverbal autistic child may respond to "Do you want a cookie, Jimmy?" with a replication of the very same words."
- 2 (psychiatry) mechanical and meaningless repetition of the words of another person (as in schizophrenia) wordnet
- 3 An infant's repetitive imitation of vocal sounds spoken by another person, occurring naturally during childhood development. countable, uncountable
- 4 an infant's repetition of sounds uttered by others wordnet
- 5 Any apparently meaningless, repetitious noises, especially voices. countable, uncountable
"There was the boom of a bass drum, and the voice of the orchestra leader rang out suddenly above the echolalia of the garden."
Example
More examples"Their echolalic responses may be much more extensive than the single words or short phrases that are characteristic of normal echolalia. Thus, a pseudoverbal autistic child may respond to "Do you want a cookie, Jimmy?" with a replication of the very same words."
Etymology
From echo- + -lalia; echo- ultimately from Ancient Greek ἠχώ (ēkhṓ, “reflected sound, echo”), -lalia from λαλιά (laliá, “talk, chat”).
More for "echolalia"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.