'aphantasia' originates from Greek, specifically the word 'phantasia', where the prefix 'a-' meant 'without' and 'phantasia' meant 'appearance, imagination'.

'aphantasia' was coined in English in 2015 by neurologist Adam Zeman by combining the Greek privative prefix 'a-' with 'phantasia' (Ancient Greek 'phantasia'), which passed into medical/Latin usage as 'phantasia' before being adopted into modern English terminology.

Initially, the Greek-derived elements meant 'without imagination' in a literal sense; over time the coined term 'aphantasia' has come to denote the specific neurological/psychological condition of lacking voluntary mental imagery.