Word.ws English Dictionary

terminal lucidity

terminal lucidity noun: a rare, mysterious phenomenon when someone with a severe neurological or psychiatric condition (like dementia) experiences a sudden, temporary return of mental clarity, memory, and personality just before death, allowing for clear communication and recognition; appearing one's old self for a brief period before passing away.

terminal lucidity: a rare, mysterious phenomenon when someone with a severe neurological or psychiatric condition...
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Noun

terminal lucidity (uncountable)

  1. A rare, mysterious phenomenon when someone with a severe neurological or psychiatric condition (like dementia) experiences a sudden, temporary return of mental clarity, memory, and personality just before death, allowing for clear communication and recognition; appearing one's old self for a brief period before passing away.
    • Terminal lucidity was reported by 60% of the participants in Santos et al.’s (2017) study and by 73% of the participants in Claxton-Oldfield and Richard’s (2022) study.2026 June, Stephen Claxton-Oldfield, Sara MacEachern, “Undergraduate Students’ Awareness of and Beliefs About Unusual End-of-Life Phenomena”, in Omega, volume 93, number 2, →DOI, →ISSN, page 1224
    Synonyms:
    terminal rally, rallying, rally, pre-mortem surge, energy surge, surge, end-of-life experience

Synonyms of terminal lucidity

Origin of terminal lucidity

From terminal + lucidity.

Questions about terminal lucidity

What does terminal lucidity mean?
Terminal lucidity means a rare, mysterious phenomenon when someone with a severe neurological or psychiatric condition (like dementia) experiences a sudden, temporary return of mental clarity, memory, and personality just before death, allowing for clear communication and recognition; appearing one's old self for a brief period before passing away.
What part of speech is terminal lucidity?
Terminal lucidity is a noun.

Words near terminal lucidity in the dictionary

  1. terminal illness
  2. terminal illnesses
  3. terminal leave
  4. terminal leaves
  5. terminal lucidities
  6. terminal lucidity
  7. terminal moraine
  8. terminal moraines
  9. terminal object
  10. terminal objects
  11. terminal rally

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: terminal lucidity (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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