Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Apraxia
/əˈpræksiə/noun
Loss of the ability to carry out learned purposeful movements, despite intact strength and understanding.
The Greek roots
ἀ-
a-
not, without
πρᾶξις
prâxis
doing, action
Literally: “no doing”
The story of the word
The word was used in 1871 by the linguist Heymann Steinthal and turned into a clinical category around 1900 by the neurologist Hugo Liepmann. What it names is strange enough to need its own word: the patient knows what a comb is, can move the arm, and still cannot show you how to comb. Ancient Greek ἀπραξία meant something entirely different, mere idleness or inactivity.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → medical coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
dyspraxiapraxispragmaticpractical
In a sentence
After the stroke he had an apraxia so specific that he could light a match only when he was not thinking about it.