ECHOLALIA

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does echolalia mean? 

• ECHOLALIA (noun)
  The noun ECHOLALIA has 2 senses:

1. an infant's repetition of sounds uttered by others

2. (psychiatry) mechanical and meaningless repetition of the words of another person (as in schizophrenia)

  Familiarity information: ECHOLALIA used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ECHOLALIA (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An infant's repetition of sounds uttered by others

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("echolalia" is a kind of...):

echo (a reply that repeats what has just been said)

Sense 2

Meaning:

(psychiatry) mechanical and meaningless repetition of the words of another person (as in schizophrenia)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("echolalia" is a kind of...):

repeating; repetition (the act of doing or performing again)

Domain category:

psychiatry; psychological medicine; psychopathology (the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders)

 Context examples 

A subtype of schizophrenia characterized by a psychomotor disturbance that may involve motoric immobility, excessive motor activity, extreme negativism or mutism, peculiarities of voluntary movement, echolalia, and/or echopraxia.

(Catatonic Type Schizophrenia, NCI Thesaurus)

Contagious yawning is triggered involuntarily when we observe another person yawn -it is a common form of echophenomena- the automatic imitation of another's words (echolalia) or actions (echopraxia).

(Why Is Yawning so Contagious?, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

There was the boom of a bass drum, and the voice of the orchestra leader rang out suddenly above the echolalia of the garden.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)