dyslexic
Americanadjective
noun
-
dyslexics
plural
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of dyslexic
First recorded in 1960–65; dyslex(ia) + -ic
Explanation
If you're dyslexic, you have a learning disability that makes it particularly hard for you to read, write, and spell. Someone who's dyslexic suffers from dyslexia, in which the brain has trouble translating images into language. Many think that dyslexic people simply transpose letters and numbers — reading 1234 as 4321 or mistaking b for d — but the symptoms are usually broader than this. To a dyslexic person, letters and numbers may jump around on the page, or the person might have trouble connecting letters to the sounds they make. The word dyslexic comes from the Greek roots dys, meaning bad, and lexis, meaning word.
Vocabulary lists containing dyslexic
Freak the Mighty
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Florida's B.E.S.T. Roots: dys
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A Very Large Expanse of Sea
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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:
Ms. Brauer, a scrappy, dyslexic young woman from a working-class Long Island, N.Y., family, discovered boating in college.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 24, 2026
Matson said he was particularly thrilled with the award marking his achievements as he is "very dyslexic" and "left school with no qualifications".
From BBC ● Sep. 14, 2026
As a child, I was severely dyslexic and developed a stutter.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 16, 2025
“I’m not proud of having a poor education. I’m not proud of being dyslexic and having attention deficit disorder,” he says, pausing to request some sweetener to stir into this tea.
From Salon ● Jul. 24, 2025
She loved reading so much, I’d forgotten she was dyslexic, too.
From "The Lightning Thief" by Rick Riordan
The Dyslexia Association provides a wide range of services to directly assist and improve the lives of dyslexics of all ages.
From BBC ● Apr. 13, 2023
Many dyslexics end up "compensating" for their trouble with language processing by doing other things really well – things that don't come naturally to the linear mind.
From Salon ● Apr. 9, 2023
Hancock said: “These are the skills that dyslexics tend to have in abundance and they are also the skills that the future of work values more and more.”
From The Guardian ● Dec. 7, 2021
In the University of Rennes study, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, scientists looked into the eyes of 30 non-dyslexics and 30 dyslexics.
From BBC ● Oct. 18, 2017
Gabriele found that in the brains of dyslexics, this process wasn’t occurring when they heard the same person speak different words.
From Time ● Dec. 21, 2016
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
