Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Relating to, characteristic of, or affected with paranoia.
  • adjective Exhibiting or characterized by extreme and irrational fear or distrust of others.
  • noun One affected with paranoia.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Resembling paranœa.
  • noun The trade-name for a plastic material which resembles celluloid, used for dominoes, poker chips, etc.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective (Med.) Affected with paranoia.
  • adjective colloq. Suffering from delusions of being persecuted by the conspiratorial actions of others; having an unwarranted suspicion of the motives of others; -- used loosely in a negative sense, not as a medical term.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Of, related to, or suffering from paranoia
  • adjective Exhibiting extreme and irrational fear or distrust of others
  • noun Someone suffering from paranoia

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a person afflicted with paranoia
  • adjective suffering from paranoia

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From paranoia +‎ -oid.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word paranoid.

Examples

  • And I never asked you if you thought I was paranoid, I am * rightfully paranoid* and I'm ok with that.

    phpBB.com WoadBooks 2010

  • Wolf, this question of whether it was Saddam and the doubles -- I don't mean to use the term paranoid in the classic psychiatric sense.

    CNN Transcript Mar 20, 2003 2003

  • I haven't seen any psychiatri­c diagnoses, but the term paranoid schizophre

    The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com The Huffington Post News Editors 2011

  • Rubyfoo: I haven't seen any psychiatric diagnoses, but the term paranoid

    The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com The Huffington Post News Editors 2011

  • This was before I went on the web and knew almost nothing about paranoid personality disorder and just assumed the term paranoid schizophrenic was an hysterical insult that self-righteous idiots flung at a person they didn't like.

    MetaFilter Projects 2008

  • We are all sufferers from history, but the paranoid is a double sufferer, since he is afflicted not only by the real world, with the rest of us, but by his fantasies as well.

    paranoia in american politics 2009

  • As Hofstadter wrote, "We are all sufferers from history, but the paranoid is a double sufferer, since he is afflicted not only by the real world, with the rest of us, but by his fantasies as well."

    9/11 Truth and the Paranoid Style - Boing Boing 2009

  • We are all sufferers from history, but the paranoid is a double sufferer, since he is afflicted not only by the real world, with the rest of us, but by his fantasies as well.

    tingilinde: 2009

  • MARSHALL: Well, mothers who kill their children often have what we call paranoid attachment systems so the way they attach to the child is being angry towards the child, feeling that the child has taken something from them, taking the love, they ` re jealous toward other people ` s attention towards the child, but they also love the child and are attached.

    CNN Transcript Mar 5, 2009 2009

  • MORRISON: "You" is what we call a paranoid pseudo community.

    CNN Transcript Apr 19, 2007 2007

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.

    January 30, 2008

  • Paranoid personality disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis that denotes a personality disorder with paranoid features. It is characterized by an exaggeration of the cognitive modules for sensitivity to rejection, resentfulness, distrust, as well as the inclination to distort experienced events. Neutral and friendly actions of others are often misinterpreted as being hostile or contemptuous.

    People with this disorder tend to have excessive trust in their own knowledge and abilities and usually avoid close relationships with others. They search for hidden meanings in everything and read hostile intentions into the actions of others. They are quick to “challenge the loyalties of friends and loved ones and often appear cold and distant to others�?. They usually shift blame to others and tend to carry long grudges.

    Based on little or no evidence, they suspect that others are out to harm them and usually find hostile or malicious motives behind other people's actions.

    _Wikipedia

    Marrying a man like this can lead to divorce.

    February 4, 2008