aphasia

a·pha·sia  (-fzh)

n.

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

---

[Greek, from aphatos, speechless : a-, not; see a-¹ + phatos, spoken, speakable (from phanai, to speak; see -phasia).]

---

a·phasi·ac (-z-k) n.

a·phasic (-zk, -sk) adj. & n.

---

aphasia

Noun

a disorder of the central nervous system that affects the ability to use and understand words [Greek a- not + phanai to speak]

---

aphasia  (-fzh)

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

---

aphasia

Pathology. an impairment or loss of the faculty of understanding or using spoken or written language. — aphasiac, n. — aphasic, n., adj.

See also: Speech

Thesaurus

Noun

1.

aphasia - inability to use or understand language (spoken or written) because of a brain lesion brain disease, brain disorder, encephalopathy - any disorder or disease of the brain acoustic aphasia, auditory aphasia, word deafness - an impairment in understanding spoken language that is not attributable to hearing loss associative aphasia, conduction aphasia - aphasia in which the lesion is assumed to be in the association tracts connecting the various language centers in the brain; patient's have difficulty repeating a sentence just heard global aphasia, total aphasia - loss of all ability to communicate ataxic aphasia, Broca's aphasia, expressive aphasia, motor aphasia, nonfluent aphasia - aphasia in which expression by speech or writing is severely impaired amnesic aphasia, amnestic aphasia, anomia, anomic aphasia, nominal aphasia - inability to name objects or to recognize written or spoken names of objects transcortical aphasia - a general term for aphasia that results from lesions outside of Broca's area or Wernicke's area of the cerebral cortex alexia, visual aphasia, word blindness - inability to perceive written words fluent aphasia, impressive aphasia, receptive aphasia, sensory aphasia, Wernicke's aphasia - aphasia characterized by fluent but meaningless speech and severe impairment of the ability understand spoken or written words