akathisia
/æ.kəˈθɪ.si.ə/noun
akathisia is a noun meaning “A sensation of restlessness characterized by an inability to sit still/down or remain motionless/seated, arising from a subjective need or desire to…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled A-K-A-T-H-I-S-I-A, and it appears about once in every 25 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of akathisia is akathisias.
What does akathisia mean?
noun
- 1
A sensation of restlessness characterized by an inability to sit still/down or remain motionless/seated, arising from a subjective need or desire to move, often coinciding with the sensation of twitching of muscles, often as a side effect of psychiatric medications.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce akathisia?
- /æ.kəˈθɪ.si.ə/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of akathisia
- akathisias plural
- acathisia
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is akathisia?
Akathisia appears about once in every 25 million words in written English, the 150,355th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Akathisia in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense sensation of restlessness characterized by an inability to sit still:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| Portuguese | acatisia |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does akathisia come from?
From a- + Ancient Greek κάθισις (káthisis, “sitting”) + -ia. See also κᾰθῐ́ζω (kăthĭ́zō, “to sit down”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).