Word.ws English Dictionary

akrasia

Syllables: akras·ia/əˈkɹeɪ.zɪ.ə/US/əˈkɹeɪ.zi.ə/

akrasia noun: 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.

Noun

akrasia (countable and uncountable, plural akrasias)

  1. (uncountable) 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.
    • 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.1887 June, W[illiam] E[wart] Gladstone, “The Great Olympian Sedition”, in The Contemporary Review, volume LI, London: Isbister and Company […], →ISSN, →OCLC, page 762
    • 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.1890, W[illiam] E[wart] Gladstone, “Section IV: Rudiments of Ethics”, in Landmarks of Homeric Study […], London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, subsection IV, page 91
    Synonyms:
    weakness, ineptitude

akrasia meaning in Indonesian

akrasia in Indonesian

lack of physical or (especially) mental strength; poor willpower; tendency to act contrary to one’s better judgment; instance of this
akrasia

Synonyms of akrasia

Forms of akrasia

pluralakrasias
alternative formacrasia

Origin of akrasia

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.

Words formed from akrasia

Questions about akrasia

What does akrasia mean?
Akrasia means 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.
What is akrasia in Indonesian?
Akrasia in Indonesian is akrasia. See Akrasia meaning in Indonesian.
What part of speech is akrasia?
Akrasia is a noun.
How do you pronounce akrasia?
Akrasia is pronounced /əˈkɹeɪ.zɪ.ə/ (UK).
What is the plural of akrasia?
The plural of akrasia is akrasias.

Words near akrasia in the dictionary

  1. akrafena
  2. akrafenas
  3. Akragas
  4. Akram
  5. akras
  6. akrasia
  7. akrasias
  8. akratic
  9. akratically
  10. Akre
  11. akreophagist

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: akrasia (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-acrasia.wav.

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