schizophrenia
noun
Simple meaning
A psychiatric diagnosis denoting a persistent, often chronic, mental illness characterised by abnormal perception, thinking, behavior and emotion, often showing delusions.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
skihtsuhfreeneeuhSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
skɪtsəfˈɹiniə
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
pathology
A psychiatric diagnosis denoting a persistent, often chronic, mental illness characterised by abnormal perception, thinking, behavior and emotion, often marked by delusions.
informalfigurative
Any condition in which disparate or mutually exclusive activities coexist; a lack of decision between options.
now deprecated
A condition in which a person is supposed to have several distinct personalities; dissociative identity disorder.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Formality
- Technical
- Typical Use
- Varies by meaning
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: (pathology) A psychiatric diagnosis denoting a persistent, often chronic, mental illness characterised by abnormal perception, thinking, behavior and emotion, often marked by delusions.
Used this way, schizophrenia is a specialist word with a faintly unfavourable edge. This is a clinical use: it belongs to medical description, where it is factual rather than emotive.
- Emotional tone
- Slightly negative
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Critical or judgemental
- Usage feel
- Clinical and detached
Where it naturally appears
- Medicine/healthcare
- Science
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Nearby words
- schizophrenic disorder , rarer, so it draws attention
- schizophrenic psychosis , rarer, so it draws attention
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A form of schizophrenia characterized by a tendency to remain in a fixed stuporous state for long periods.
A form of schizophrenia characterized by a tendency to remain in a fixed stuporous state for long periods.
A form of schizophrenia characterized by severe disintegration of personality including erratic speech and childish mannerisms and bizarre behavior.
A form of schizophrenia characterized by severe disintegration of personality including erratic speech and childish mannerisms and bizarre behavior.
A form of schizophrenia characterized by severe disintegration of personality including erratic speech and childish mannerisms and bizarre behavior.
Schizophrenia characterized by mild symptoms or by some preexisting tendency to schizophrenia.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: psychiatric diagnosis denoting a persistent or often chronic
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.