This question has been bugging me for a really long time now. When a person is not able to see, the person is blind. When they can’t hear, they’re deaf. When a person can’t feel anything, the person is paralyzed. What is it if the person can’t smell or taste? Is there a fancy word for it?
No sense of taste: ageusia or ageustia
No sense o smell: anosmia
No sense of touch: tactile agnosia
The word paralysis is ambiguous. It can refer either to the loss of the sense of touch or to the loss of motor control. The two do no always occur together.
Work is the curse of the drinking classes. (Oscar Wilde)
Tactile agnosia doesn’t mean what I thought it did. It’s the inability to recognize objects by tactile sensory input, not the absence of such.
As far as I can tell, the inability to feel doesn’t have a special one-word name. It’s called “sensory paralysis”. Inability to move is “motor paralysis.”
What about “numb”?
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Cecil has already answered this one. Let’s see if I can link this right…
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/980327.html