Meaning & use
neurosis
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Meanings
nouncountable or uncountablemedicalold-fashioned
An older medical term for a mental condition with strong anxiety, fears or obsessive habits in which the person still understands reality.
Grammar: Plural is neuroses; the singular can be uncountable when talking about the idea in general.
Patterns
- suffer from neurosis
- a neurosis about something
Early psychoanalysts wrote at length about the roots of neurosis.
Doctors now name specific anxiety disorders instead of using the single label neurosis.
His constant checking of locks was once described as a neurosis.
nouncountableinformal
An everyday word for an unreasonable worry or fixed habit that a person cannot easily shake off.
Grammar: Often used jokingly and with possessives: my neurosis about being late.
Patterns
- a neurosis about something
Her neurosis about germs makes her wash her hands constantly.
I have a neurosis about leaving the house without my keys.
The comedian built a whole routine around his neuroses.
Word forms
| plural | neuroses |
|---|
Common combinations
- a deep-seated neurosis
- The novel explores a deep-seated neurosis rooted in childhood.
- suffer from neurosis
- The character suffers from neurosis and cannot relax.
- obsessional neurosis
- Obsessional neurosis was an old name for what is now called obsessive-compulsive disorder.
- an urban neurosis
- The film pokes fun at the urban neurosis of its busy characters.
- cure a neurosis
- Therapy helped him overcome a neurosis that had followed him for years.
Synonyms and how they differ
- anxiety
- Anxiety is the current clinical and everyday word, while neurosis is older and suggests a deeper personality pattern.
- phobia
- A phobia is a strong fear of one specific thing, while a neurosis is a wider pattern of worry.
- obsession
- An obsession is one fixed idea or habit, whereas neurosis can include many symptoms.
- hang-up
- Hang-up is informal and lighter, treating the worry as a quirk rather than a condition.
Opposites
Word family
- neurotic adjective
- affected by or showing excessive worry
- neurotic noun
- a person who is neurotic
- neurotically adverb
- in an overly anxious way
- neuroticism noun
- a personality trait of being easily upset or anxious
Commonly confused: neurosis or psychosis? neurosis or neurology?
neurosis vs psychosis
Psychosis is a serious condition in which a person loses contact with reality, while neurosis traditionally did not involve that loss.
neurosis vs neurology
Neurology is the study of the nervous system and its diseases, not of anxiety patterns.
Practice
Which phrase best suits the older meaning of neurosis?
Choose one answer.
Neurosis traditionally meant anxiety and obsessive patterns with reality kept intact. Loss of contact with reality is psychosis, and the others are physical problems.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “neurosis”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.