paralysis

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Loss or impairment of the ability to move a body part, usually as a result of damage to its nerve supply.
2. n. Loss of sensation over a region of the body.
3. n. Inability to move or function; total stoppage or severe impairment of activity: fear that led to national paralysis.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The impairment of the normal capacity of the nervous system for bringing into action one or more active organs, muscular or glandular, or for receiving impressions along one or more sensory paths. Motor paralysis is called akinesia, sensory paralysis anæsthesia. When the peripheral organ is the seat of gross destructive disease the term paralysis is not employed, but it is used for finer changes which set these organs out of action, as in some cases of muscular paralysis. Paralysis of one lateral side of the body is hemiplegia; of the lower half, paraplegia; and of one limb or a small part of the body, monoplegia. Incomplete paralysis of any part is called paresis.
2. n. Figuratively, loss of energy; loss of the power of performing regular functions; the state of being crippled, as in an emergency, or helpless amid any circumstances.
3. n. Paralysis due to an encephalic lesion.
4. n. Muscular pseudohypertrophy.

Wiktionary

1. n. pathology The complete loss of voluntary control of part of person's body, such as one or more limbs.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Med.) Abolition of function, whether complete or partial; esp., the loss of the power of voluntary motion, with or without that of sensation, in any part of the body; palsy. See hemiplegia, and paraplegia. Also used figuratively.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. loss of the ability to move a body part