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Monday October 4, 2004

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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

 

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