Amnesia

Definition: Amnesia

Amnesia

Noun

1. Partial or total loss of memory: "he has a total blackout for events of the evening".

Date "amnesia" was first used: 1786. (references)

Etymology: Amnesia \Am*ne"si*a\, noun. [New Latin expression, from the Greek expression 'a priv. to remember.]. (Websters 1913)

Specialty Definitions: Amnesia

Domain	Definitions
Electrical Engineering	The tendency over time for a heat-shrinkable elastomeric tubing or moulded part to fail to recover completely to its specified recovered size. Source: European Union. (references)
Health	Lack or loss of memory; inability to remember past experiences. (references)
Public Administration	Partial or total loss of memory following head injury, drugs or other conditions. Retrograde amnesia is loss memory for events that precede the injury. Source: European Union. (references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Specialty Definition: Amnesia

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

DISCLAIMER

Please remember that Wikipedia is offered for informational use only. The information is in most cases not reviewed by professionals. You are advised to contact your doctor for health-related decisions.

Amnesia is a condition in which memory is disturbed. The causes of amnesia are organic or functional. Organic causes include damage to the brain, through trauma or disease, or use of certain (generally sedative) drugs. Functional causes are psychological factors, such as defense mechanisms. Hysterical post-traumatic amnesia is an example of this. Amnesia may also be spontaneous, in the case of transient global amnesia. This global type of amnesia is more common in middle-aged to elderly people, particularly males, and usually lasts less than 24 hours.

Amnesia can be temporary. As someone recovers, older memories will generally return first. The memories of the event that caused the amnesia are often never recalled.

Treatment varies according to the type of amnesia and the cause of the problem. Sufferers of amnesia should seek medical attention.

Types of Amnesia

In anterograde amnesia, new events are not transferred to long-term memory, so the sufferer will not be able to remember anything that occurs after the onset of this type of amnesia. The opposite of this is retrograde amnesia, where someone will be unable to recall events that occurred before the onset of amnesia.
Fugue amnesia is also known as emotional or hysterical amnesia. It is caused by psychological trauma and is usually temporary.
Lacunar amnesia is the loss of memory about one specific event.
Memory loss caused by alcoholism is known as the Korsakoff's syndrome. This is caused by brain damage due to a Vitamin B1 deficiency and will be progressive if alcohol intake and nutrition pattern are not modified. It will usually improve little over time even if they are. Other neurological problems are likely to be present.
Posthypnotic amnesia is where events during hypnosis are forgotten, or where past memories are unable to be recalled.
Traumatic amnesia is generally due to a head injury (fall, knock on the head).
Childhood amnesia is the common inability to remember events from your own childhood. Whilst Sigmund Freud attributed this to sexual repression, others have theorised that this may be due to language development or immature parts of the brain.
Global amnesia is total memory loss. This may be a defence mechanism which occurs after a traumatic event.

Synonyms: Amnesia

Synonyms: blackout (n), memory loss (n). (additional references)

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Synonyms within Context: Amnesia

Context	Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).
Oblivion	Noun: oblivion, obliviousness, lethe; forgetfulness; Adjective: amnesia; obliteration; of, insensibility; to the past.
Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

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Crosswords: Amnesia

English words defined with "amnesia": amnesiac, amnesic, amnestic, anterograde, anterograde amnesia ♦ posthypnotic amnesia, posttraumatic amnesia, psychomotor epilepsy ♦ retrograde, retrograde amnesia ♦ selective amnesia ♦ temporal lobe epilepsy, transient global amnesia. (references)

Specialty definitions using "amnesia": colour names amnesia. (references)

Non-English Usage: "Amnesia" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses.

Italian (amnesia), Spanish (amnesia).

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Modern Usage: Amnesia

Domain	Usage
Screenplays	Smithers, get the amnesia ray. (The Simpsons; writing credit: Artur Brauner; Paul Hengge) Have fun, just don't have amnesia. (Sex and the City; writing credit: Mark Leiren-Young) I perform a much needed job here in this city of amnesia. (The Big O; writing credit: Masanao Akahoshi; Kei'ichi Hasegawa)
Lyrics	From, Club Cheetah, to Club Amnesia (I Just Wanna Love U (Give it 2 Me); performing artist: Jay-Z)
Clever	Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time. I think I've forgotten this before. (references; author: unknown)
Movie/TV Titles	Amnesia (1921)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Commercial Usage: Amnesia

Domain	Title
Books	Amnesia (reference) Amnesia Tango (reference) Karl Krolow and the Poetics of Amnesia in Postwar Germany (Studies in German Literature, Linguistics, and Culture) (reference) The Princess Has Amnesia (Silhouette Romance, 1606) (reference) Twilight Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia (reference) (more book examples)

Theater & Movies	A Wind Named Amnesia (reference) (more DVD examples; more video examples)

Music	Amnesia (reference) (more classical music examples; more popular music examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Non-Fiction Usage: Amnesia

Subject	Topic	Quote
Health		Ketamine is odorless and tasteless, so it can be added to beverages without being detected, and it induces amnesia. (references)
		This sleep-related form of amnesia is the reason people often forget telephone calls or conversations they've had in the middle of the night. (references)
		Mental confusion, personality regression, parietal lobe syndromes, amnesia, hallucinations, memory loss, and persistent myoclonus may also occur. (references)
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits.

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Usage Frequency: Amnesia

"Amnesia" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 98.06% of the time. "Amnesia" is used about 103 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Noun (singular)	98.06%	101	32,488
Noun (proper)	1.94%	2	245,945
Total	100.00%	103	N/A

Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.

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Expressions: Amnesia

Expressions using "amnesia": anterograde amnesia ♦ colour names amnesia ♦ localized amnesia ♦ posthypnotic amnesia ♦ posttraumatic amnesia ♦ retrograde amnesia ♦ selective amnesia ♦ transient global amnesia. Additional references.
Hyphenated Usage
	Beginning with "amnesia": amnesia-suffering.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Frequency of Internet Keywords: Amnesia

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Expression	Frequency per Day	Expression	Frequency per Day
amnesia	232	amnesia monterrey	4
transient global amnesia	71	amnesia symptom	4
amnesia club	35	amnesia night club	3
amnesia ibiza	23	amnesia drug	3
anterograde amnesia	23	amnesia parcial	3
retrograde amnesia	17	amnesia temporary	3
dissociative amnesia	16	amnesia cream	3
global amnesia	11	amnesia klub	3
amnesia infantile	11	amnesia global symptom transient	3
amnesia cause	10	amnesia jessica lynch	3
amnesia childhood	10	ambien amnesia	3
amnesia transglobal	7	amnesia hysterical	3
amnesia psychogenic	6	amnesia club omaha	3
amnesia type	5	wind named amnesia	3
amnesia global trans	5	amnesia carl levins	3
amnesia information	5	amnesia lyrics	3
traumatic amnesia	4	amnesia disorder global related transient	3
amnesia treatment	4	amnesia lobe temporal	3
amnesia movie	4	amnesia global transitory	2
post traumatic amnesia	4	amnesia neurotransmitters	2
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Modern Translations: Amnesia

Language		Translations for "amnesia"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Albanian		amnezi, humbje e kujtesës. (various references)

Arabic		‏فقدان الذاكرة (memory), ‏فقد الذاكرة بسبب حمى, ‏فقد الذاكرة, ‏فجوة فى ذاكرة المرء. (various references)

Bulgarian		загубване на паметта, амнезия. (various references)

Czech		amnézie, ztráta pamìti. (various references)

Danish		amnesi. (various references)

Dutch		amnesie. (various references)

Farsi		فراموشی (Forget, Oblivion), نسیان (Lapse, Oblivion), ضعف حافظه بعلت ضعف یابیماری مغزی . (various references)

Finnish		amnesia, väsyminen (fatigue), muistittomuus, muistinmenetys. (various references)

French		amnésie. (various references)

German		Amnesie (loss of memory), Gedächtnisschwund (loss of memory). (various references)

Greek		αμνησία (anomia, forgetfulness, loss of memory). (various references)

Hebrew		שכחון (forgetfulness), שכח�" (forgetfulness, oblivion, obliviousness), אבו�" �"זכרון, אב�"ן זכרון, � שיון. (various references)

Hungarian		amnézia. (various references)

Italian		amnesia. (various references)

Japanese Kanji		健忘症 (loss of memory). (various references)

Japanese Katakana		け�"ぼうしょう (loss of memory). (various references)

Korean		건망증 (FORGETFULNESS). (various references)

Manx		neuchooinaghtyn (loss of memory, oblivion). (various references)

Pig Latin		amnesiaay

Portuguese		amnésia. (various references)

Romanian		amnezie (black out). (various references)

Russian		амнезия, потеря памяти. (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		amnezija. (various references)

Spanish		amnesia. (various references)

Swedish		amnesi. (various references)

Turkish		amnezi, unutkanlık (forgetfulness, Lethe, obliviousness), hafıza kaybı, bellek yitimi. (various references)

Ukranian		втрата пам'яті, амнезія. (various references)

Vietnamese		chứng quên. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

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Ancestral Language Translations: Amnesia

Language	Period	Translations
Greek	700 BCE-300 CE	amnesia. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

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Derivations & Misspellings: Amnesia

Derivations
	Words beginning with "amnesia": amnesiac, amnesiacs, amnesias. (additional references)
	Words ending with "amnesia": paramnesia. (additional references)
	Words containing "amnesia": paramnesias. (additional references)
Misspellings
	"Amnesia" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: abnesia, amaemia, Ambesi, Ambesol, Amecea, amensia, amnes, amnestia, amnesy, amnosia, amuesha, Anaspida, Arnebia, Danusia, manasir, Manessier, Mannesi, Panezai, ramonesian. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

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Rhyming with "Amnesia"

# of Phoneme Matches	Pronunciation	Word(s) rhyming with "amnesia" (pronounced amnē"zhu)
4	-n ē" zh u	magnesia.
3	-ē" zh u	anaesthesia, anesthesia.
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

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Anagrams: Amnesia

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Direct Anagrams: anemias.
	Words within the letters "a-a-e-i-m-n-s"
	-1 letter: amines, anemia, animas, animes, inseam, manias, mesian, seaman, semina.
	-2 letters: amain, amens, amias, amies, amine, amins, amnia, anima, anime, anise, ansae, mains, manas, manes, mania, manse, means, mensa, miens, minae, minas, mines, names, nemas.
	-3 letters: aims, ains, amas, amen, amia, amie, amin, amis, anas, anes, anis, ansa, asea, maes, main, mana, mane, mans.
	-5 letters: aa.
	Words containing the letters "a-a-e-i-m-n-s"
	+1 letter: amentias, amnesiac, amnesias, anaemias, animates, magnesia, paeanism.
	+2 letters: amberinas, ambiances, amnesiacs, analcimes, anamnesis, anatomies, anatomise, animaters, anomalies, anoxemias, calamines, deaminase, diamantes, egomanias, haematins, laminates, magazines, magnesian, magnesias, mangabies, marinades, marinates, mismanage, nizamates, paeanisms, pearmains, staminate.
	+3 letters: abominates, adamancies, almandines, almandites, aluminates, amanuensis, amazonites, amiantuses, ammoniates, anamnestic, anatomised, anatomises, anatomizes, animaliers, animalizes, campaniles, cyanamides, deaminases, deaminates, egomaniacs, emanations, examinants, gallamines, imbalances, lamebrains, leishmania, macaronies, machinates, mahoganies, mainframes, mainstream, manganites, margarines, marginates, mayonnaise, mediastina, misbalance, mismanaged, mismanages, myasthenia, naumachies, nialamides, paramnesia, rainmakers, rampancies, reanimates, seamanlike, seamanship, semantical, semiannual, seminarian, smaragdine, thiaminase.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.