Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Partial or total loss of the ability to articulate ideas or comprehend spoken or written language, resulting from damage to the brain from injury or disease.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In pathology, the impairment or abolition of the faculty of using and understanding written and spoken language, independently of any failure of the intellectual processes or any disease or paralysis of the vocal organs.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Med.) Loss of the power of speech, or of the appropriate use of words, the vocal organs remaining intact, and the intelligence being preserved. It is dependent on injury or disease of the brain.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun pathology A partial or total loss of language skills due to brain damage. Usually, damage to the left perisylvian region, including Broca's area and Wernike's area, causes aphasia.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun inability to use or understand language (spoken or written) because of a brain lesion

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Greek, from aphatos, speechless : a-, not; see a– + phatos, spoken, speakable (from phanai, to speak; see –phasia).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Modern Latin, from Ancient Greek ἀφασία, from ἄφατος ("speechless"), from ἀ- ("a-") + φάσις ("speech").

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Examples

  • At the story's beginning, a drug damages Rodney and makes him completely and incurably aphasiac; the only dent in the aphasia is an Ancient device which allows Rodney to do pictoral mental communication with Ancient gene carriers, just barely enough that they don't need to ship him home immediately.

    October 6th, 2007 fiercelydreamed 2007

  • She actually had a condition known as aphasia, which is a sort of a big term.

    CNN Transcript Feb 11, 2005 2005

  • Speech aphasia is my middle name, no matter what stage of a novel I’m currently writing. * sigh*

    Writer Unboxed » Blog Archive » The Post Book Crash 2010

  • But you can have certain situations where you can have one of the speech problems, something known as aphasia, present much earlier in the diagnose of Alzheimer's.

    CNN Transcript Jul 12, 2007 2007

  • It is also not the same as neurogenic or “acquired stuttering” e.g. aphasia, which is associated with head injury or stroke.

    Knotted Tongues Benson Bobrick 1995

  • It is also not the same as neurogenic or “acquired stuttering” e.g. aphasia, which is associated with head injury or stroke.

    Knotted Tongues Benson Bobrick 1995

  • The disease called aphasia, in which people begin by saying tea when they mean coffee, commonly ends in their silence.

    A Miscellany of Men 1905

  • In fact the hyoscyamus had, combined with his anxieties, given him a slight attack of what is now called aphasia, that brain disease the most striking symptom of which is that one word is mistaken for another.

    Sir Walter Scott Hutton, Richard 1878

  • Injuries like Giffords' to the left side of the brain lead to an acquired language disorder known as aphasia in one-third to one-half of patients, experts said.

    The Seattle Times 2011

  • But his latest book, Deep Field, which will be published in November, is a collection of poems explicitly about John, their complex relationship and the condition aphasia, which is stealing John's ability to communicate.

    WalesOnline - Home 2011

Comments

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  • i know. obvious.

    December 6, 2006

  • I learned this word in a pysch class ages ago, but recently I ran into someone who was actually NAMED it. The poor kid. She's in for an unpleasant surprise when she looks up the meaning of her name...

    October 17, 2008

  • Aphasia is not necessarily the result of a brain lesion.

    And it's not "any disorder or disease of the brain," either.

    Who posted this definition?

    May 19, 2009

  • StefAnne: It wasn't posted by anyone. They gray definitions next to words come from WordNet.

    May 19, 2009

  • A.k.a. WeirdNet. You haven't seen the worst of it...

    May 19, 2009

  • ninja words goes into more detail regarding the brain damage part

    May 20, 2009

  • See also qwertial aphasia.

    July 21, 2009