parapraxis

/ˌpærəˈpræksɪs/

Other forms: parapraxes

When you slip up and say something you didn't mean to say, it may be a parapraxis — a mistake that reveals something hidden in your unconscious mind.

It's more common to call a parapraxis a Freudian slip, a glitch in your memory or a misspoken word that seems to expose an unconscious wish, fear, or conflict. Both the word parapraxis — from the Latin para-, "contrary," and the Greek praxis, "a doing," — and the term Freudian slip arose from the theories of Sigmund Freud, who invented psychoanalysis. Freud himself first called these slips Fehlleistungen, "faulty actions" in German.

Definitions of parapraxis

1. noun

   a minor inadvertent mistake usually observed in speech or writing or in small accidents or memory lapses etc.
   synonyms: miscue, slip, slip-up

   types:

   Freudian slip

   a slip-up that (according to Sigmund Freud) results from the operation of unconscious wishes or conflicts and can reveal unconscious processes in normal healthy individuals

   type of:

   error, fault, mistake

   a wrong action attributable to bad judgment or ignorance or inattention