Tourette’s disorder
a tic disorder characterized by many motor tics and one or more vocal tics, such as grunts, yelps, barks, sniffs, or (rarely) coprolalia. The tics occur many times a day for more than a year, during which time any period free of tics is never longer than 3 months. The age of onset for the disorder is before 18 years; in most cases, it starts during childhood or early adolescence. Also called Gilles de la Tourette’s syndrome. [first described in 1885 by Georges Gilles de la Tourette (1857–1904), French physician]