Word.ws English Dictionary

locked-in syndrome

locked-in syndrome noun: a rare, severe physical disorder in which a person cannot speak and is paralyzed—with the possible exception of some voluntary eye movement—while their mental faculties remain fully intact.

Noun

locked-in syndrome (uncountable)

  1. A rare, severe physical disorder in which a person cannot speak and is paralyzed—with the possible exception of some voluntary eye movement—while their mental faculties remain fully intact.
    • The locked-in syndrome is a medical condition in which, though both level and content of consciousness may be fairly normal, the patient is so severely paralyzed it may appear on superficial examination that he or she has diminished consciousness.1988, Ronald E. Cranford, “The Persistent Vegetative State: The Medical Reality (Getting the Facts Straight)”, in The Hastings Center Report, volume 18, number 1, page 30
    • A a^([sic]) 58-year-old victim of locked-in syndrome has told the high court that a decision not to allow him to be helped to die would condemn him "to a 'life' of increasing misery".2012 June 19, Amelia Hill, quoting Tony Nicklinson, “Man with locked-in syndrome calls for change to murder law”, in The Guardian, →ISSN
    Synonyms:
    pseudocoma

Synonyms of locked-in syndrome

Questions about locked-in syndrome

What does locked-in syndrome mean?
Locked-in syndrome means a rare, severe physical disorder in which a person cannot speak and is paralyzed—with the possible exception of some voluntary eye movement—while their mental faculties remain fully intact.
What part of speech is locked-in syndrome?
Locked-in syndrome is a noun.

Words near locked-in syndrome in the dictionary

  1. locked the stable door after the horse had been stolen
  2. locked the stable door after the horse had bolted
  3. locked through
  4. locked under
  5. locked up
  6. locked-in syndrome
  7. locked-room mystery
  8. Lockeford
  9. locken
  10. Lockens
  11. Lockeport

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: locked-in syndrome (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “locked-in syndrome.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/locked-in_syndrome. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.