Paralysis

//pəˈɹæləsəs// noun

noun ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The complete loss of voluntary control of part of a person's body, such as one or more limbs. countable, uncountable
  2. 2
    loss of the ability to move a body part wordnet
  3. 3
    A state of being unable to act. countable, uncountable

    "The government has been in a paralysis since it lost its majority in the parliament."

Synonyms

All synonyms
palsya wise passivenessabscessagueanemiaankylosis

Example

More examples

"There have been several cases of infantile paralysis."

Etymology

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.

Related phrases

Australian paralysis tickBrown-Séquard's paralysisChronic bee paralysis virusanalysis paralysisfowl paralysisgeneral paralysisgeneral paralysis of the insaneinfantile paralysisparalysis agitansparalysis by analysisparalysis tickpyjama paralysis

More for "paralysis"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

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