Word of the Day Archive
Thursday March 22, 2001
abulia \uh-BOO-lee-uh; uh-BYOO-\ , noun:
Loss or impairment of the ability to act or to make decisions.
I was suffering from an aboulia, you know. I couldn't seem to make decisions.
-- Anatole Broyard, "Reading and Writing; (Enter Pound and Eliot)", New York Times, May 30, 1982
There's little escape from her black hole of abulia.
-- James Saynor, "Woman in the Midst of a Nervous Breakdown", New York Times, June 12, 1994
Abulia derives from Greek a-, "without" + boule, "will." The adjective form is abulic.
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for abulia
