dementia praecox

dementia prae·cox  (prkks)

n.

Schizophrenia. No longer in scientific use.

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[New Latin dmentia praecox : Latin dmentia, dementia + Latin praecox, premature.]

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dementia praecox

schizophrenia.

See also: Insanity

Thesaurus

Noun

1.

dementia praecox - any of several psychotic disorders characterized by distortions of reality and disturbances of thought and language and withdrawal from social contact schizophrenia, schizophrenic disorder, schizophrenic psychosis psychosis - any severe mental disorder in which contact with reality is lost or highly distorted borderline schizophrenia, latent schizophrenia - schizophrenia characterized by mild symptoms or by some preexisting tendency to schizophrenia catatonic schizophrenia, catatonic type schizophrenia, catatonia - a form of schizophrenia characterized by a tendency to remain in a fixed stuporous state for long periods; the catatonia may give way to short periods of extreme excitement disorganized schizophrenia, disorganized type schizophrenia, hebephrenia, hebephrenic schizophrenia - a form of schizophrenia characterized by severe disintegration of personality including erratic speech and childish mannerisms and bizarre behavior; usually becomes evident during puberty; the most common diagnostic category in mental institutions paranoic type schizophrenia, paranoid schizophrenia, paraphrenia, paraphrenic schizophrenia - a form of schizophrenia characterized by delusions (of persecution or grandeur or jealousy); symptoms may include anger and anxiety and aloofness and doubts about gender identity; unlike other types of schizophrenia the patients are usually presentable and (if delusions are not acted on) may function in an apparently normal manner acute schizophrenic episode, reactive schizophrenia - schizophrenia of abrupt onset and relatively short duration (a few weeks or months)