Dictionary.com
definitions

dementia

[dih-men-shuh, -shee-uh]
|
SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR dementia ON THESAURUS.COM

noun Psychiatry.

severe impairment or loss of intellectual capacity and personality integration, due to the loss of or damage to neurons in the brain.

RELATED CONTENT

Would you learn a new language if it would help your health?Would you learn a new language if it would help your health? You may have heard that bilingual children actually have more brainpower than kids who grow up speaking only one language. (Learn more about the cognitive advantages that bilingual kids have here.) But could speaking multiple languages help you at the other end of life as well? Neuroscientists now say yes. Bilingualism appears to …
READ MORE
Around the Web: Madder Victorian PandasIs madder a real word? When Obama used it in a tweet, there was outrage that it was not grammatically correct. The Guardian asks us all to calm down. Trying to learn another language? Good, it may delay dementia. Struggling? Avoid these 10 common mistakes. Do different languages confer different personalities? The Economist explores. And while we’re talking multilingualism: here are 11 untranslatable words. To …
READ MORE

RELATED WORDS

unbalance, derangement, madness, insanity

Nearby words

  1. demeanour,
  2. demeclocycline,
  3. dement,
  4. demented,
  5. dementedly,
  6. dementia praecox,
  7. dementia pugilistica,
  8. demento,
  9. demerara,
  10. demerge

Origin of dementia

1800–10; < Latin dēmentia madness, equivalent to dēment- out of one's mind (see dement) + -ia noun suffix
Related formsde·men·tial, adjective
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for dementia

British Dictionary definitions for dementia

dementia

noun

a state of serious emotional and mental deterioration, of organic or functional origin

Word Origin for dementia

C19: from Latin: madness; see dement
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for dementia

dementia

n.

1806, from Latin dementia "madness, distraction, folly," noun of state from dementem, from dementer (see dement). It existed earlier in an anglicized form, demency (1520s), from French démence. Dementia praecox is a Modern Latin form recorded from 1899 in English, 1891 in German, from French démence précoce (1857). See precocious.

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
Medicine definitions for dementia

dementia

[dĭ-mĕn′shə]

n.

Deterioration of intellectual faculties, such as memory, concentration, and judgment, resulting from an organic disease or a disorder of the brain, and often accompanied by emotional disturbance and personality changes.
The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Science definitions for dementia

dementia

[dĭ-mĕn′shə]

Deterioration of intellectual faculties, such as memory, concentration, and judgment, sometimes accompanied by emotional disturbance and personality changes. Dementia is caused by organic damage to the brain (as in Alzheimer's disease), head trauma, metabolic disorders, or the presence of a tumor.
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.