Word.ws English Dictionary

paruresis

/ˌpɑːjʊˈriːsɪs/US/ˌpɑrjʊˈrisɪs/

paruresis noun: the inability to urinate in the presence of others.

Noun

paruresis (uncountable)

  1. The inability to urinate in the presence of others.
    • Completely normal men who develop prostatitis will suddenly come down with urinary paruresis as one of their symptoms.1996, Bradley Hennenfent, M.D.; Roseville Books, The Prostatitis Syndromes: Approaches to Treating Bacterial Prostatitis, page 59
    • Piss-shyness (paruresis) may prevent sufferers from using a public restroom.2003, Clara Greed, Inclusive Urban Design: Public Toilets, page 100
    Synonyms:
    shy bladder, shy bladder syndrome, stage fright, performance anxiety

Synonyms of paruresis

Origin of paruresis

From para- (“abnormal, defective”) + -uresis (“urination”). The term was coined by Williams and Degenhart in their 1954 paper "Paruresis: A survey of a disorder of micturition" in the Journal of General Psychology 51:19-29.

Questions about paruresis

What does paruresis mean?
Paruresis means the inability to urinate in the presence of others.
What part of speech is paruresis?
Paruresis is a noun.
How do you pronounce paruresis?
Paruresis is pronounced /ˌpɑːjʊˈriːsɪs/ (UK).

Words near paruresis in the dictionary

  1. Parulog
  2. parumbilical
  3. paruppu
  4. parure
  5. parures
  6. paruresis
  7. paruretic
  8. paruretics
  9. paruria
  10. parusia
  11. PARV

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: paruresis (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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