Word.ws English Dictionary

palsy

/ˈpɔːlzi//ˈpælzi/

palsy noun: complete or partial muscle paralysis of a body part, often accompanied by a loss of feeling and uncontrolled body movements such as shaking.

Noun (1)

palsy (countable and uncountable, plural palsies)

  1. Complete or partial muscle paralysis of a body part, often accompanied by a loss of feeling and uncontrolled body movements such as shaking.
    • The palsie plagues my pulses
      when I prigg yoͬ: piggs or pullen
      your culuers take, or matchles make
      your Chanticleare or sullenc. 1620,, anonymous, “Tom o’ Bedlam’s Song” in Giles Earle his Booke (British Museum, Additional MSS. 24, 665)
    • "Young lady, there is no hope; one side of the Duchesse is struck with palsy; she retains her senses, and will, most probably, to the last; but she cannot live through the night."1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter VIII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 73
    Synonyms:
    paralysis

Verb

palsy (third-person singular simple present palsies, present participle palsying, simple past and past participle palsied)

  1. To paralyse, either completely or partially.
    • In the month of August, I issued proposals for publishing "THE LIBERATOR" in Washington city; but the enterprise, though hailed in different sections of the country, was palsied by public indifference.1831, William Lloyd Garrison, The Liberator, To The Public http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2928t.html
    • Its streets were blocked up with snow - the few passengers seemed palsied with snow, and frozen by the ungenial visitation of winter.1826, [Mary Shelley], chapter IX, in The Last Man. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC

Adjective

palsy (comparative more palsy, superlative most palsy)

  1. (colloquial) Chummy, friendly.

Noun (2)

palsy (plural palsies)

  1. (slang) Mate, chum.
    • Listen, palsy, you're not the boss.2013, James Hadley Chase, You Can Say That Again

palsy meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Telugu

palsy in Tamil

வாதம்

palsy in Urdu

فالج

palsy in Bengali

প্যালসি

palsy in Telugu

complete or partial muscle paralysis of a body part
పక్షవాతము pakṣavātamu
More languagesFewer languages
palsy in Malayalam
പാൾസി, പാൾസിക്ക്, പാൾസി വരെ
palsy in Kannada
ಪಾರ್ಶ್ವವಾಯು, ಲಕ್ವ, ಅದುರುವಾಯು, ಅನೈಚ್ಛಿಕ ಕಂಪನಗಳು
palsy in Gujarati
લકવો આવવો, લકવો થવો
palsy in Nepali
पाल्सी
palsy in Arabic
شَلَل šalal, كَسَح kasaḥ

Synonyms of palsy

Forms of palsy

Noun
pluralpalsies
alternative form (obsolete)palsie
Verb
third-person singular presentpalsies
present participlepalsying
past participlepalsied
pastpalsied
Adjective
comparativemore palsy
superlativemost palsy

Plural of palsy: palsies

Origin of palsy

From Middle English palesie, from Anglo-Norman paralisie, parleisie et al., from Latin paralysis, from Ancient Greek παράλυσις (parálusis, “palsy”), from παραλύω (paralúō, “to disable on one side”), from παρα- (para-, “beside”) + λύω (lúō, “loosen”). Doublet of paralysis.

From pal + -sy.

Words formed from palsy

Questions about palsy

What does palsy mean?
Palsy means complete or partial muscle paralysis of a body part, often accompanied by a loss of feeling and uncontrolled body movements such as shaking.
What is palsy in Tamil?
Palsy in Tamil is வாதம். See Palsy meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is palsy?
Palsy can be a noun, a verb or an adjective.
How do you pronounce palsy?
Palsy is pronounced /ˈpɔːlzi/.
What is the plural of palsy?
The plural of palsy is palsies.

Words near palsy in the dictionary

  1. palsification
  2. palstaff
  3. palstaffs
  4. palstave
  5. palstaves
  6. palsy
  7. palsy-walsy
  8. palsying
  9. palsylike
  10. palsywort
  11. palsyworts

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: palsy (page history and authors); palsy (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); palsy (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); palsy (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); palsy (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); palsy (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); palsy (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); palsy (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-palsy1.wav.

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