palsy
1 Americannoun
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palsies
plural
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any of a variety of atonal muscular conditions characterized by tremors of the body parts, as the hands, arms, or legs, or of the entire body.
verb (used with object)
adjective
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of palsy1
1250–1300; Middle English, variant of parlesie < Middle French paralisie < Latin paralysis paralysis
Origin of palsy2
Explanation
If you're paralyzed, you can describe your condition as palsy. Your grandfather's palsy might confine him to a wheelchair. The noun palsy can be used to talk about an inability to move, or alternately, an uncontrollable shaking that's caused by some condition or disease. Some kinds of palsy affect one side of a person's face, leaving half of it paralyzed. The Greek origin of palsy is paralysis, which literally means "loosen," from the word paralyein, and its roots para, "beside," and lyein, "loosen or untie."
Vocabulary lists containing palsy
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
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The Great Gilly Hopkins
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Small Steps
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
My Left Foot told the true story of an Irish man named Christy Brown, played by Day-Lewis, who was born with cerebral palsy and could control only his left foot.
From BBC ● Jul. 17, 2026
Some mothers have been left with permanent damage to their bladder and bowels, while one said her daughter suffered a neonatal stroke due to the condition, leaving her with cerebral palsy.
From BBC ● Jun. 13, 2026
He said his son has cerebral palsy and a seizure disorder, and relies on assistance to live with dignity.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 9, 2026
My brother, who has cerebral palsy and is developmentally disabled, is two years older than I am.
From MarketWatch ● Mar. 10, 2026
“Ooh, here’s the part about you. Listen to this! ‘One outstanding member of the Spaulding team is Melody Brooks, an eleven-year-old who has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy.
From "Out of My Mind" by Sharon M. Draper
That fall, a friend told the patient about a clinic at New York University that specialized in facial palsies.
From New York Times ● Sep. 29, 2022
Hiroshimans feel that The Bomb purged them of all war guilt; perhaps that is why Hiroshima is free of the paralysis that palsies most of the rest of the world.
From Time Magazine Archive
Among the many symptoms associated with overexposure are blindness, insomnia, kidney failure, hearing loss, cancer, palsies, and convulsions.
From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson
The thought of such a phænomenon cannot well be said to startle the mind:—it palsies and appals it.
From Eureka: A Prose Poem by Edgar A. Poe
Do not palsies and apoplexies, which occur about the equinoxes, happen a few days before the vernal equinoctial lunation, and after the autumnal one?
From Zoonomia, Vol. I Or, the Laws of Organic Life by Erasmus Darwin
In his first annual message to Congress, John Quincy Adams, among the most experienced and intellectually formidable presidents, warned leaders against giving the impression that “we are palsied by the will of our constituents.”
From Washington Post ● Apr. 21, 2017
In front of a billion or so viewers, Witz was palsied with pleasure.
From Time ● Mar. 3, 2014
On the spot, they decide to liberate Claude from the company of the palsied, demented, and wheelchair bound.
From Salon ● Feb. 7, 2013
Five years on from the Wall Street crash, the world economy is still palsied.
From The Guardian ● Jan. 22, 2013
And they were completely unmoved by his angry contempt: “You, standing palsied at the gate of death and yet afraid to die!”
From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton
That’s never happened before—hunting is a favorite pastime—and he sees the change in himself as just one more sign of the times’ palsying effect on the simplicity of the old ways.
From The New Yorker ● Oct. 14, 2019
Was it not the wraith of his buried love which now hovered before him, blotting out the sight of the carter, deafening his ears to the jest, and palsying his hand?
From William Pitt and the Great War by John Holland Rose
Una, bringing home the palsying weariness of the day’s drudgery, would find a cheery welcome—and the work not done; no vegetables for dinner, no fresh boric-acid solution prepared for washing her stinging eyes.
From The Job An American Novel by Sinclair Lewis
That week of palsying, unnerving isolation got me.
From Branded by Francis Lynde
And then he told them of Monmouth day,—of its exultant beginning, its strange changes and chances, its palsying despair, its victory snatched from defeat.
From Joscelyn Cheshire A Story of Revolutionary Days in the Carolinas by Sara Beaumont Kennedy
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
