English

Noun

schizophrenia ‎(countable and uncountable, plural schizophrenias)

1. (pathology) A psychiatric diagnosis denoting a persistent, often chronic, mental illness variously affecting behavior, thinking, and emotion.
2. (informal, figuratively) Any condition in which disparate or mutually exclusive activities coexist.
   • 2006, Bertus Praeg, Ethiopia and Political Renaissance in Africa (page 213)

     […] one can understand how the cultural disorientation which beset the African Continent has confused Africa's political behaviour, creating a political schizophrenia that made nation-building impossible.

Synonyms

• dementia praecox
• schizophrenic disorder
• schizophrenic psychosis

Hyponyms

• borderline schizophrenia
• catatonic schizophrenia (catatonia)
• disorganized schizophrenia
• hebephrenic schizophrenia (hebephrenia)
• latent schizophrenia
• paranoid schizophrenia
• paraphrenic schizophrenia
• reactive schizophrenia

Derived terms

• schizophrenic

Related terms

• Schistosoma

Translations

References

“schizophrenia” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary (2001). “schizophrenia” in Dictionary.com Unabridged, v1.0.1, Lexico Publishing Group, 2006.