autism
/ˈɔːtɪz(ə)m
/noun [mass noun]
A mental condition, present from early childhood, characterized by great difficulty in communicating and forming relationships with other people and in using language and abstract concepts.Children with autism have difficulty using their imagination, communicating or interacting....
- Even for the most able children and young people with autism, their disability presents enormous challenges.
- People with autism have difficulty filtering what they see around them and are unable to work out what is important.
Derivatives
autist
- But if many virtues are inaccessible to an autist, so too are many vices.
- It's an unsatisfactory term, because an autist's sense of self is almost as rudimentary as his sense of other people.
- As things stand in British arts, only an autist would dare to profess disinterest in diversity.
Origin
Early 20th century (originally with reference to a condition in which fantasy dominates over reality, regarded as a symptom of schizophrenia and other disorders): from Greek autos 'self' + -ism.
- pencil beard
- pencil blue
- pencil box
- pencil case
- pencil cedar
- pencil compass
- pencil crayon
- pencil flash
- pencil flashlight
- pencil flower
- pencil-knife
- pencil lead
- penciller
- pencil line
- pencilly
- pencil mark
- pencil microphone
- pencil moustache
- pencil-neck
- pencil-necked
- pencil pants
- pencil pine
- pencil pusher
- pencil-pushing
- pencil sharpener