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acrasia

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acrasia¹

  • /əˈkɹeɪ.zɪ.ə/ UK
  • /-ˈkɹæ-/ UK
  • /əˈkɹeɪ.zi.ə/ US

Sounds like akrasia

Where it comes from

Learned borrowing from Late Latin acrasia (“lack of temperance”), and from its etymon Ancient Greek ᾰ̓κρᾱσῐ́ᾱ (ăkrāsĭ́ā, “bad mixture”), from ἄκρᾱτος (ákrātos, “pure, unmixed, untempered; of a person: intemperate, violent”) + -ῐ́ᾱ (-ĭ́ā, suffix forming feminine abstract nouns). Ἄκρᾱτος (Ákrātos) is derived from ᾰ̓- (ă-, “privative”, prefix) + κερᾰ́ννῡμῐ (kerắnnūmĭ, “to mix, blend; to cool or temper by mixing”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱerh₂- (“to mix”)) + -τος (-tos, suffix forming adjectives). Doublet of acrasy.

noun

  1. archaic, rare, uncountable Lack of self-control; excess, intemperance; also, irregular or unruly behaviour. Him fortuned (hard fortune ye may gheſſe) / To come, vvhere vile Acraſia does vvonne [live], / Acraſia a falſe enchauntereſſe, / That many errant knightes hath fovvle fordonne: […]

    Similar: acrasy, immoderation, incontinence, abundance, acrasia, excess, fat, excessiveness, exuberance, copiousness, fecundity, fertileness

acrasia²

  • /əˈkɹeɪ.zɪ.ə/ UK
  • /-ˈkɹæ-/ UK
  • /əˈkɹeɪ.zi.ə/ US

Sounds like akrasia

Where it comes from

A variant of akrasia.

noun acrasias

  1. alternative, countable, uncountable Alternative spelling of akrasia (“(uncountable) lack of physical or (especially) mental strength; poor willpower; also, the tendency to act contrary to one's better judgment; (countable) an instance of this”) What I think this depicts is a relationship between the reasons we have to act and the action we do. This problem of acrasia suggests that sometimes we have those reasons. We think smoking is bad for health so the action we would expect is that we would refrain from smoking. Instead, we smoke.

Translations

Every language

noun lack of self-control — see also excess, intemperance

Españolacrasia
Portuguêsacrasia
DeutschAkrasia, innerer Schweinehund
Русскийакра́зия akrázija

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MLA

"acrasia." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/acrasia. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

acrasia. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/acrasia

Chicago

"acrasia." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/acrasia.

BibTeX
@misc{acrasia_2026,
  title = {acrasia},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/acrasia},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}