Meaning & use
paranoia
Last updated
Meanings
noununcountablemedical
A strong, unreasonable belief that other people are plotting against you or watching you.
Grammar: Not used with a: He suffers from paranoia.
Patterns
- suffer from paranoia
- paranoia about something
His paranoia grew until he stopped answering the door.
The doctor said the paranoia was a symptom of the illness.
She felt a wave of paranoia on the empty street.
noununcountableinformal
An everyday, exaggerated fear that something bad will happen or that others are against you.
Grammar: Often informal: pure paranoia.
Patterns
- paranoia about something
- a climate of paranoia
Don't worry, that's just paranoia.
There was a climate of paranoia in the office after the layoffs.
Online privacy fears fed a general paranoia.
Common combinations
- suffer from paranoia
- He began to suffer from paranoia after the accident.
- feed paranoia
- Constant news alerts can feed paranoia.
- a sense of paranoia
- She felt a sense of paranoia at work.
- deep paranoia
- Deep paranoia made him lock every window.
- paranoia about
- Their paranoia about spies was endless.
Synonyms and how they differ
- suspicion
- Suspicion can be reasonable, while paranoia is out of proportion to the facts.
- distrust
- Distrust is a mild lack of confidence in people, not a belief in a plot.
- anxiety
- Anxiety is general worry, whereas paranoia is specific fear of being targeted.
- delusion
- Delusion is any false belief, and paranoia is a delusion of persecution in particular.
Opposites
Word family
- paranoid adjective
- unreasonably suspicious
- paranoiac noun
- a person with paranoia
- paranoically adverb
- in a paranoid way
- paranoidly adverb
- in a suspicious way
Commonly confused: paranoia or paranormal?
paranoia vs paranormal
Paranormal means beyond ordinary scientific explanation, such as ghosts, and has nothing to do with suspicion.
Practice
She was sure her neighbors were secretly recording her, although she had no evidence. This is an example of ___.
Choose one answer.
Paranoia is groundless fear of being watched or plotted against. The other options do not describe this fear.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “paranoia”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.