Meaning & use
neuroses
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“neuroses” is a form of “neurosis”. See that entry for the full set of meanings.
Meanings
nounpluralmedicalold-fashioned
Plural of neurosis: long-lasting mental conditions involving strong anxiety or fear, without a loss of contact with reality.
Grammar: Plural form; the singular is neurosis: one neurosis, several neuroses.
Patterns
- neuroses about something
Early psychologists studied neuroses such as extreme phobias and obsessive habits.
Her book explores the neuroses of city life.
Therapy helped him work through several neuroses that had troubled him for years.
nounpluralinformalhumorous
Plural of neurosis in everyday speech: unreasonable worries or fixations that someone has about a particular thing.
Grammar: Used loosely and often humorously: her neuroses about punctuality.
Patterns
- neuroses about something
He has the usual neuroses of a first-time author, checking his sales every hour.
Her neuroses about cleanliness made visits to her kitchen stressful.
Common combinations
- deep-seated neuroses
- The film shows a family with deep-seated neuroses.
- modern neuroses
- The novel satirizes modern neuroses about health.
- suffer from neuroses
- Many patients in the study suffered from neuroses.
- cure neuroses
- Doctors once claimed they could cure neuroses with rest.
- personal neuroses
- She tried not to let her personal neuroses affect the team.
Synonyms and how they differ
- anxieties
- Anxieties are worries of any kind, while neuroses suggests a deeper pattern of fear or fixation.
- hang-ups
- Hang-ups is casual and points to specific emotional blocks, whereas neuroses sounds more clinical.
- phobias
- Phobias are intense fears of one specific thing, but neuroses can cover broader anxious patterns.
Word family
- neurosis noun
- singular of neuroses
- neurotic adjective
- overly anxious or worried
- neurotically adverb
- in an overly anxious way
- neuroticism noun
- a tendency to feel anxiety and worry easily
Commonly confused: neuroses or psychoses? neuroses or neurons?
neuroses vs psychoses
Psychoses are severe conditions in which a person loses touch with reality, unlike neuroses.
neuroses vs neurons
Neurons are nerve cells; neuroses are mental conditions.
Practice
The novel is a funny study of the ___ of a nervous young couple.
Choose one answer.
Neuroses is the plural noun meaning anxious fixations and fits after 'the'. Neurons are nerve cells, and 'neurotic' is an adjective.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “neuroses”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.