Also ‑praxis and ‑practic.
Action; practice.
Greek praxis, action.
Apraxia (Greek a‑, not or without) or dyspraxia (Greek dus‑, bad or difficult) is inability to perform particular purposive actions, as a result of brain damage; neurapraxia is temporary loss of nerve function due to pressure on the nerve, often found in sports injuries; echopraxia is pathological imitation of the actions of another person; eupraxia (Greek eu, well) or orthopraxis (Greek orthos, straight, right) is correct practice or action, in a spiritual or ethical sense; parapraxis (sometimes parapraxia) (Greek para, beside, amiss, irregular) is the faulty performance of an intended action.
Adjectives based on these are formed in ‑practic: apractic, eupractic. A rare example of a noun in this ending is chiropractic (Greek kheir, hand), a system of complementary medicine based on the diagnosis and manipulative treatment of misalignments of the joints.
Copyright © Michael Quinion 2008–. All rights reserved. Your comments are very welcome.