palsy

From Middle English palesie, from Anglo-Norman paralisie, parleisie et al., from Latin paralysis, from Ancient Greek παράλυσις (parálusis, “palsy”), from παραλύω (paralúō, “to disable on one side”), from παρα- (para-, “beside”) + λύω (lúō, “loosen”). Doublet of paralysis.

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɔːlzi/

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• Rhymes: -ɔːlzi

palsy (countable and uncountable, plural palsies)

1. (pathology) Complete or partial muscle paralysis of a body part, often accompanied by a loss of feeling and uncontrolled body movements such as shaking.
   • c. 1620, anonymous, “Tom o’ Bedlam’s Song” in Giles Earle his Booke (British Museum, Additional MSS. 24, 665):

     The palsie plagues my pulses
     when I prigg yoͬ: piggs or pullen
     your culuers take, or matchles make
     your Chanticleare or sullen

   • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), OCLC 630079698, page 73:

     "Young lady, there is no hope; one side of the Duchesse is struck with palsy; she retains her senses, and will, most probably, to the last; but she cannot live through the night."

   • 1891, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, chapter 1, in The Blue Pavilions:

     "Ah! now we come to business! Barber, who's dead?"
     "Alderman Croten, sir."
     "Tut-tut. Croten gone?"
     "Yes, sir; palsy took him at a ripe age. And Abel's gone, the Town Crier;"

   • 1952, Norman Lewis, Golden Earth:

     Again we were stricken of our palsy, slowed down, re-accelerated, and there, at last, were the few huts of a hamlet, with the lorry, lying at an angle in the road's camber, outside a tea-shop.

   Synonym: paralysis

palsy (third-person singular simple present palsies, present participle palsying, simple past and past participle palsied)

1. To paralyse, either completely or partially.
   • 1831, William Lloyd Garrison, The Liberator, To The Public

     In the month of August, I issued proposals for publishing "THE LIBERATOR" in Washington city; but the enterprise, though hailed in different sections of the country, was palsied by public indifference.

   • 1826, Mary Shelley, The Last Man, volume 2, chapter 9

     Its streets were blocked up with snow - the few passengers seemed palsied with snow, and frozen by the ungenial visitation of winter.

From pals +‎ -y.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈpælzi/

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palsy (comparative more palsy, superlative most palsy)

1. (colloquial) Chummy, friendly.

• palsy in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• palsy in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911
• palsy at OneLook Dictionary Search

• plays, splay, spyal