hemiplegia
/ˌhem.ɪˈpli.dʒə/noun
hemiplegia is a noun meaning “Total or partial inability to move one side of the body” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled H-E-M-I-P-L-E-G-I-A and has 5 syllables, and it appears about once in every 13 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of hemiplegia is hemiplegias.
What does hemiplegia mean?
noun
- 1
Total or partial inability to move one side of the body.
I call the series Dubliners to betray the soul of that hemiplegia or paralysis which many consider a city.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce hemiplegia?
- UK /ˌhem.ɪˈpliː.dʒ(i.)ə/
- US /ˌhem.ɪˈpli.dʒə/
Hemiplegia has 5 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of hemiplegia
- hemiplegias plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is hemiplegia?
Hemiplegia appears about once in every 13 million words in written English, the 106,501st 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).
Hemiplegia in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense total or partial inability to move one side of the body:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| German | halbseitige Lähmung |
| Portuguese | hemiplegia |
| Spanish | hemiplejia |
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 hemiplegia come from?
From New Latin hemiplegia, from Ancient Greek ἡμιπλήξ (hēmiplḗx), also ἡμιπληγής (hēmiplēgḗs, “stricken on one side”), from ἡμι- (hēmi-, “half”) + πλήσσω (plḗssō, “to strike”). By surface analysis, hemi- + -plegia.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).