Word.ws English Dictionary

situational mutism

situational mutism noun: selective mutism.

Noun

situational mutism (uncountable)

  1. (rare) selective mutism.

Origin of situational mutism

Coined as a more accurate term for the disorder, since people with selective/situational mutism do not choose to be silent; rather, the condition is an anxiety disorder that inhibits speech in certain situations.

Questions about situational mutism

What does situational mutism mean?
Situational mutism means selective mutism.
What part of speech is situational mutism?
Situational mutism is a noun.

Words near situational mutism in the dictionary

  1. situation room
  2. situation rooms
  3. situation theory
  4. situational
  5. situational awareness
  6. situational mutism
  7. situationally
  8. situationism
  9. situationisms
  10. situationist
  11. situationistic

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: situational mutism (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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Cite this entry: “situational mutism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/situational_mutism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.