Standard Lemma guide

neurasthenia

noun · 2 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

  • /ˌnjʊəɹəsˈθiːniə/
  • Southern-England: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
  • CMU ARPABET: N UH2 R AE0 S TH IY1 N IY0 AH0 Digits mark lexical stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.

1

noun

Meaning 1

An ill-defined medical condition characterized by lassitude, fatigue, headache, and irritability, associated chiefly with emotional disturbance.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: countable, dated, uncountable

Topics: human-sciences, medicine, psychiatry, psychology, sciences

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: anergasia, Americanitis

Antonyms: none provided

2

noun

Meaning 2

nervous breakdown (not in technical use)

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

Broader terms: nervous breakdown

History

Etymology

From neur- + asthenia, after Italian nevrastenia. By surface analysis, neur- (“nerve”) + a- (“not”) + sthen- (“strength”) + -ia (“disease”).

Across languages

Translations

19 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Catalan: neurastènia — ill-defined medical condition
  • Chinese Mandarin: 神經衰弱 /神经衰弱 (shénjīng shuāiruò) — ill-defined medical condition
  • Chinese Mandarin: 神經衰弱症 /神经衰弱症 (shénjīng shuāiruò zhèng) — ill-defined medical condition
  • Czech: neurastenie — ill-defined medical condition
  • Dutch: neurasthenie — ill-defined medical condition
  • Finnish: neurastenia — ill-defined medical condition
  • Finnish: väsymysoireyhtymä — ill-defined medical condition
  • Finnish: heikkohermoisuus — ill-defined medical condition
  • French: neurasthénie — ill-defined medical condition
  • Irish: néaraistéine — ill-defined medical condition
  • Japanese: 神経衰弱 (shinkeisuijaku) — ill-defined medical condition
  • Kazakh: жүйке бұзылу (jüike būzylu) — ill-defined medical condition
  • Kazakh: жүйкесі жұқару (jüikesı jūqaru) — ill-defined medical condition
  • Korean: 신경쇠약 (sin'gyeongsoeyak) — ill-defined medical condition
  • Macedonian: неврастенија (nevrastenija) — ill-defined medical condition
  • Macedonian: со слаби живци (so slabi živci) — ill-defined medical condition
  • Polish: neurastenia — ill-defined medical condition
  • Portuguese: neurastenia — ill-defined medical condition
  • Russian: неврастени́я (nevrasteníja) — ill-defined medical condition