Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Cataplexy
/ˈkætəplɛksi/noun
A sudden loss of muscle tone triggered by strong emotion, usually laughter, in people with narcolepsy.
The Greek roots
κατά
katá
down
πλῆξις
plêxis
a striking, a blow
Literally: “a striking down”
The story of the word
Greek κατάπληξις meant being struck dumb with amazement, the stunned pause of someone hit by news. Nineteenth-century physicians applied it first to the frozen stillness of a frightened animal, then to the human condition where a joke drops the knees out from under someone who stays fully awake and aware. The root πλήσσω also gave apoplexy, another striking, and plectrum, the thing that strikes a string.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
apoplexyplectrumcatalepsyparaplegia
In a sentence
Anything genuinely funny risks a cataplexy attack, so he learned to sit down before telling a story.