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Wernicke's encephalopathy

Wernicke's encephalopathy noun: the presence of neurological symptoms — classically, ophthalmoplegia, ataxia and confusion — caused by biochemical lesions of the central nervous system after exhaustion of B-vitamin reserves, in particular thiamine.

Noun

Wernicke's encephalopathy (uncountable)

  1. The presence of neurological symptoms — classically, ophthalmoplegia, ataxia and confusion — caused by biochemical lesions of the central nervous system after exhaustion of B-vitamin reserves, in particular thiamine.

Synonyms of Wernicke's encephalopathy

Origin of Wernicke's encephalopathy

Named after Carl Wernicke (1848–1905), German physician.

Questions about Wernicke's encephalopathy

What does Wernicke's encephalopathy mean?
Wernicke's encephalopathy means the presence of neurological symptoms — classically, ophthalmoplegia, ataxia and confusion — caused by biochemical lesions of the central nervous system after exhaustion of B-vitamin reserves, in particular thiamine.
What part of speech is Wernicke's encephalopathy?
Wernicke's encephalopathy is a noun.

Words near Wernicke's encephalopathy in the dictionary

  1. Wernicke's area
  2. Wernicke's areas
  3. Wernicke's command
  4. Wernicke's commands
  5. Wernicke's disease
  6. Wernicke's encephalopathy
  7. Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome
  8. Wernicks
  9. werning
  10. werns
  11. wero

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Wernicke's encephalopathy (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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