schizophrenia

Meaning

Noun

• A psychiatric diagnosis denoting a persistent, often chronic, mental illness characterised by abnormal perception, thinking, behavior and emotion, often marked by delusions.
• Any condition in which disparate or mutually exclusive activities coexist; a lack of decision between options.

Related

Similar words

• dementia praecox
• schizophrenic disorder
• schizophrenic psychosis

Narrower meaning words

• borderline schizophrenia
• catatonic schizophrenia
• disorganized schizophrenia
• hebephrenic schizophrenia
• latent schizophrenia
• paranoid schizophrenia
• paraphrenic schizophrenia
• pseudoneurotic schizophrenia
• reactive schizophrenia
• object schizophrenia

Origin

• First attested 1908, from New Latin schizophrenia, from German Schizophrenie, coined by Eugen Bleuler, from Ancient Greek σχίζω ("to split") + φρήν + .