Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Affected with palsy.
  • adjective Trembling or shaking.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Paralyzed; paretic.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Affected with palsy; paralyzed.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Afflicted with palsy.
  • adjective Trembling as if afflicted with palsy.
  • verb Simple past tense and past participle of palsy.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective affected with palsy or uncontrollable tremor

Etymologies

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Examples

  • As Helga considered the implications of Jake's aggressively styled hairdo and my middle sister's nubile young body traveling at speed behind the wheel of a moving automobile, her eyebrows did a kind of palsied tremor, eventually settling back into their resting place above her wrinkled gaze.

    Bootstraps 2009

  • The thought made the old man panicky for the moment, and he stretched forth a palsied hand which wandered tremblingly over the small heap of dry wood beside him.

    THE LAW OF LIFE 2010

  • Possibly, at least in theory, I might have struggled my way to write some of my other books, in some palsied form, if Howard were not in my lifebut I certainly could never have written this one without him.

    A Conversation with Sy Montgomery, author of The Good Good Pig 2010

  • Without the palsied hand of government, the unions would wither and die.

    500 SEIU bully-boys vs. 1 14-year-old. | RedState 2010

  • Fortunately, the T stop was deserted while the green line train approached as fast and steady as a palsied dentist.

    Doggone Mark Meier 2011

  • With rheumy eyes they saw to his needs, with palsied hands filling his glass or striking him on the back between the shoulders when death stirred and he coughed and gasped.

    The Wit of Porportuk 2010

  • He must have been nearly eighty that spring morning on the cliffs when he signalled with palsied hand for his litter to be rested down that he might gaze upon us whom he had punished for so long.

    Chapter 15 2010

  • They were age-twisted and palsied, faithful to their meat, a generation out of the past that watched unmoved the antics of younger life.

    The Wit of Porportuk 2010

  • Finally, the captain's son, irritated beyond measure, jerked the book from the palsied fingers of the old man and found the place.

    THAT DEAD MEN RISE UP NEVER 2010

  • On a branch outside a sparrow flexed its wings and shimmied side to side in a palsied dance.

    My Other Mother is a Ferrari Sally Houtman 2012

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