Munchausen syndrome

[ muhn-chou-zuhn sin-drohm, muhnch-hou-zuhn ]

nounPsychiatry.
  1. a factitious disorder in which otherwise healthy individuals seek to hospitalize themselves with feigned or self-induced pathology in order to receive surgical or other medical treatment.

Origin of Munchausen syndrome

1
1950–55; named after Baron von Münchhausen, whose fictionalized accounts of his own experiences suggest symptoms of the disorder

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

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