spasm
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A painful and involuntary muscular contraction.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
spazuhmSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈspæzəm
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A painful and involuntary muscular contraction
A sudden, involuntary contraction of a muscle, a group of muscles, or a hollow organ.
pathology
Sudden constriction of a hollow organ (as a blood vessel)
A sudden and temporary burst of energy, activity, or emotion.
A violent, excruciating seizure of pain.
verb
To produce and undergo a spasm or series of spasms.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Rare
- Formality
- Technical
- Typical Use
- Varies by meaning
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A painful and involuntary muscular contraction
Used this way, spasm is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It sounds natural in ordinary conversation and in expressive writing alike.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Everyday but emotionally strong
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A painful and involuntary muscular contraction.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
A drug used to relieve or prevent spasms (especially of the smooth muscles).
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.