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

In February 2024, Williams's team announced she'd been diagnosed with both progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). —Janelle Ash, FOXNews.com, 12 Oct. 2025

Some of the most common symptoms of a stroke include aphasia (trouble speaking or loss of speech), blurry/double vision, confusion, coma, dizziness/loss of coordination, memory loss, mood swings and headaches. —Gil Kaufman, Billboard, 25 Sep. 2025

In 2023, she was placed under a conservatorship after being diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia. —Amber Corrine, VIBE.com, 16 Sep. 2025

Williams' medical care team revealed that she had been diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia in February 2024. —Ingrid Vasquez, PEOPLE, 16 Sep. 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