Mind & EmotionGreek → English
Dyslexia
/dɪsˈlɛksiə/noun
A learning difference marked by trouble reading accurately and fluently despite normal intelligence.
The Greek roots
δυσ-
dys-
bad, difficult
λέξις
léxis
word, speech
Literally: “difficulty with words”
The story of the word
Rudolf Berlin, a Stuttgart ophthalmologist, coined it in 1887 for patients who had lost the ability to read after brain injury. The developmental sense, applied to children who never acquired it easily, came from the British physician W. Pringle Morgan in 1896. Δυσ- reverses a word rather than negating it, the same prefix in dyspepsia and dystopia.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1887
Same family
lexicondyslexicdyspepsialexical
In a sentence
His dyslexia was picked up in year three, mostly because a teacher noticed how he guessed at endings.