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View synonyms for neurosis

neurosis

[ noo-roh-sis, nyoo- ]

noun

, Psychiatry.
, plural neu·ro·ses [n, oo, -, roh, -seez, ny, oo, -].
  1. Also called psychoneurosis. a functional disorder in which feelings of anxiety, obsessional thoughts, compulsive acts, and physical complaints without objective evidence of disease, in various degrees and patterns, dominate the personality.
  2. a relatively mild personality disorder typified by excessive anxiety or indecision and a degree of social or interpersonal maladjustment.


neurosis

/ njʊˈrəʊsɪs /

noun

  1. a relatively mild mental disorder, characterized by symptoms such as hysteria, anxiety, depression, or obsessive behaviour Also calledpsychoneurosis


neurosis

/ n-rōsĭs /

  1. A psychological state characterized by excessive anxiety or insecurity without evidence of neurologic or other organic disease, sometimes accompanied by defensive or immature behaviors. This term is no longer used in psychiatric diagnosis.


neurosis

  1. A mental disorder marked by anxiety or fear. Neurosis is less severe than psychosis . ( See also angst , hysteria , and phobia .)


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Notes

In popular usage, a “neurotic” is anyone who worries a lot.

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Word History and Origins

Origin of neurosis1

From New Latin, dating back to 1770–80; neur-, -osis

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Compare Meanings

How does neurosis compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

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Example Sentences

Other neuroses, including anxiety and depression, are similarly linked to faster aging.

From Time

During thru-hikes, I have sometimes known people for less than an hour before I know about their families and neuroses, sex lives and relationship traumas.

From 1952 to 1980, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, divided mental ailments into less-debilitating neuroses and more-debilitating psychoses.

It sounds like what you really want, Just Me, is a bike trail with no hikers, to not have to navigate their passive-aggressive shaming nor plumb the acute neuroses that it triggers in you.

After “an industrious night,” he wrote, “the barriers suddenly lifted, the veils dropped, and everything became transparent — from the details of the neuroses to the determinants of consciousness.”

Whether it ultimately takes aesthetic discipline or neurosis to get to that point, it's hard to say.

How do you tell the difference between aesthetic discipline and neurosis?

Is this neurosis, narcissism, or the farsighted wisdom that allows a fellow to win three hundred games?

At one level, one could look at this film as a portrayal of the beginnings of full-blown neurosis and mental illness.

Marked variation in the amount at successive examinations strongly suggests a neurosis.

Stekel,41 one of Freud's pupils, in an elaborate monograph, also lays stress on the sexual factor of the anxiety-neurosis.

The neurosis goes back to some organic defect or other cause of childish humiliation.

Compromise mechanisms will again be formed serving a purpose similar to the neurosis.

Many of the characteristics of the unconscious will then appear and will be similar in some respects to those of neurosis.

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