psychosis

noun

psy·cho·sis | \ sī-ˈkō-səs

plural psychoses\ sī-ˈkō-ˌsēz

Definition of psychosis

: a serious mental illness (such as schizophrenia) characterized by defective or lost contact with reality often with hallucinations or delusions

Examples of psychosis in a Sentence

The patient suffers from some kind of psychosis.

Recent Examples on the Web World Psychiatry showed that elements of speech such as coherence and the frequency of possessive pronouns (words like his, her, my or mine) can predict, with an accuracy of 83%, whether someone at risk for psychosis will actually become psychotic. — Daniel Barron, WSJ, "The Rise of Big Data Psychiatry," 29 Apr. 2021 Research on post-COVID psychosis is thinner, but here, too, evidence is building, according to Dr. Royce Lee, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Chicago. — Nara Schoenberg, chicagotribune.com, "After COVID-19, came panic and paranoia. The suicide of a Morris businessman shines a spotlight on a rare but serious condition: Post-COVID psychosis.," 28 Apr. 2021 After a lockdown in Hong Kong, an August 2020 study there found that two-thirds of respondents to a questionnaire reported clinical levels of depression, anxiety or stress, and more than a fifth showed signs of psychosis risk. — Belinda Luscombe, Time, "Being Single Was Just a Part of Their Lives Before the Pandemic. Then It Became the Defining One," 17 Apr. 2021 This means that psychosis played some role in 30% of mass shootings, but no role 70% of the time. — Star Tribune, "The mass shootings are back, as is the question: Why?," 25 Mar. 2021 Paranoid delusions more commonly accompany schizophrenia in late adolescence or dementia in older adults, but so far, post-Covid psychosis has mostly afflicted patients in their 30s, 40s and 50s. — New York Times, "First Covid, Then Psychosis: ‘The Most Terrifying Thing I’ve Ever Experienced’," 22 Mar. 2021 Other conditions the team looked out for were dementia, tremors, paralysis, psychosis, stroke, and swelling of the brain. — Katherine Ellen Foley, Quartz, "Covid-19 survivors are reporting long-term effects on their brains," 9 Apr. 2021 In the United Kingdom, depression, anxiety, and psychosis during pregnancy and up to one year after giving birth carry a long-term cost to society of £8.1 billion per year (about $11.3 billion). — Kara Zivin, STAT, "Meghan Markle gave voice to the despair I once felt during pregnancy," 14 Mar. 2021 But in mid-December, after a mild case of Covid-19, he was seized by a kind of psychosis that turned life into a nightmare. — New York Times, "First Covid, Then Psychosis: ‘The Most Terrifying Thing I’ve Ever Experienced’," 22 Mar. 2021

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'psychosis.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.