akrasia
/əˈkɹeɪ.zɪ.ə/
"akrasia" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“akrasia” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 7
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Lack of physical or (especially) mental strength; poor willpower; also, the tendency to act contrary to one's better judgment; (countable) an instance of this.
Corpus desk
Index EN-akrasia · akrasia · English
akrasia · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "A" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | akrasia |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /əˈkɹeɪ.zɪ.ə/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “akrasia” in English
Rare enough to double-check
akrasia is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed /əˈkɹeɪ.zɪ.ə/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Lack of physical or (especially) mental strength; poor willpower; also, the tendency to act contrary to one's better judgment; (countable) an instance of this.".
akrasia doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.
Etymologically, the entry records: Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek ᾰ̓κρᾰσῐ́ᾱ (ăkrăsĭ́ā), a variant of ᾰ̓κρᾰ́τειᾰ (ăkrắteiă, “lack of power, debility, impotence; lack of self-control, incontinence; self-indulgence”), from ἀκρατής (akratḗs, “having no authority, powerless; unable to exerc… The correct English form is akrasia, spelled A-K-R-A-S-I-A.
Definition
- 1Lack of physical or (especially) mental strength; poor willpower; also, the tendency to act contrary to one's better judgment; (countable) an instance of this.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how akrasia appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
His [Homer's] Olympian gods live by passion and propensity rather than by principle; their besetting sin is a fault of inclination to what they like, not of absolute malignity; it belongs to the akrasia, not the absolute kakia of Aristotle.
The Atasthalié of Homer seems to hold to his Atè a relation resembling that between the kakia and the akrasia of Aristotle: the one indicating innate mischief, the other only inadequate means of defence against evil when it solicits from without.
Etymology
Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek ᾰ̓κρᾰσῐ́ᾱ (ăkrăsĭ́ā), a variant of ᾰ̓κρᾰ́τειᾰ (ăkrắteiă, “lack of power, debility, impotence; lack of self-control, incontinence; self-indulgence”), from ἀκρατής (akratḗs, “having no authority, powerless; unable to exercise self-control, incontinent”) + -ῐ́ᾱ (-ĭ́ā, suffix forming feminine abstract nouns). Ἀκρατής (Akratḗs) is derived from ᾰ̓- (ă-, prefix forming terms having a sense opposite to the stems or words to which it is attached) + κρᾰ́τος (krắtos, “might, strength; dominion, power”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kret- (“insight, intelligence; strength”)) + -ής (-ḗs, suffix forming third-declension adjectives). Doublet of acratia.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.