aphasia

noun

apha·​sia ə-ˈfā-zh(ē-)ə 

medical : loss or impairment of the power to use or comprehend words usually resulting from brain damage (as from a stroke, head injury, or infection)

Aphasia, the cruel illness resulting from a stroke, allowed Jean to understand what was said to her but prevented her from clearly replying.

—Robert Giroux

aphasic

ə-ˈfā-zik 

noun or adjective

Examples of aphasia in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The Context The actor's family publicly shared his frontotemporal dementia diagnosis in 2023 after previously revealing in March 2022 that he had been diagnosed with aphasia. —Ross Rosenfeld, MSNBC Newsweek, 23 Apr. 2025

Willis retired from acting in 2022 after being diagnosed with aphasia. —Zack Sharf, Variety, 1 Apr. 2025

The 69-year-old Die Hard actor retired from acting in spring 2022 after he was diagnosed with aphasia, a cognitive condition that affects a person's ability to communicate and could impact the understanding of written and verbal language. —Daniel R. Depetris, Newsweek, 6 Dec. 2024

Williams was diagnosed with Graves' disease in 2018, though concerns over her health arose in February 2024 when she was reportedly diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia and aphasia. —EW.com, 14 Mar. 2025

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from French aphasie, from a- a- entry 2 + Greek phásis "utterance, statement" (from pha-, variant stem of phēmí, phánai "to say, speak" + -sis -sis) + French -ie -ia entry 1 — more at ban entry 1

Note: French aphasie was introduced by the physician Armand Trousseau (1801-67) in "De l'aphasie, maladie décrite récemment sous le nom impropre de l'aphémie," Gazette des hôpitaux civils et militaires, tome 37, issue of January 12, 1864, pp. 13-14. As is evident from the title, Trousseau preferred aphasie to the term aphémie, introduced earlier by physician and anthropologist Pierre Paul Broca (1824-80). Broca replied in defense of his coinage in a letter published in the same periodical on January 23. The controversy, with translated extracts from Gazette des hôpitaux, is summarized by John Ryalls in "Where does the term 'aphasia' come from?," Brain and Language, vol. 21 (1984), pp. 358-63. Though Trousseau's arguments are linguistically not at all sound, his choice has nonetheless prevailed.

First Known Use

1864, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for aphasia

• aplasia
• dysplasia
• fantasia
• achalasia
• euthanasia
• hyperplasia
• hypoplasia
• metaplasia
• neoplasia
• telangiectasia

Medical Definition

aphasia

noun

apha·​sia ə-ˈfā-zh(ē-)ə 

: loss or impairment of the power to use or comprehend words usually resulting from brain damage (as from a stroke, head injury, or infection) see motor aphasia compare amusia, anarthria