Trending: ‘aphasia’

On March 30, 2022, the family of actor Bruce Willis announced that he would be stepping back from acting because of a recent diagnosis of aphasia, which they report is "impacting his cognitive abilities."

Aphasia is defined as:

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

This word pronounced as \uh-FAY-zhee-uh\ or \uh-FAY-zhuh\.

Aphasia came to English from French; a French medical researcher coined the term using the Greek word parts a- meaning "not" or "without," and phásis, meaning "utterance, statement," ultimately from the Greek verb meaning "to say, speak."

The adjective derived from aphasia (used when referring to an utterance or a person afflicted with the condition) is aphasic, pronounced \uh-FAY-zik\.