A mental disorder in which a person has an extreme fear and distrust of others. A paranoid person may have delusions that people are trying to harm him or her.

The feeling and belief that one is being targeted or is a focus of negative or untoward actions, overt or covert, from others. The affected individual expresses a concern that people are in general against the individual and are engaging in subtle behaviors to make things difficult for them. The origins of such thinking may arise from real events and become amplified over time. Paranoia may also arise in the absence of any action or interaction between the person and their environment.

An irrational fear of harm by or distrust of others.

An irrational fear of harm by others, or distrust of others.

Rare psychiatric syndrome marked by the gradual development of a highly elaborate and complex delusional system, generally involving persecutory or grandiose delusions, with few other signs of personality disorganization or thought disorder.

(paranoid disorders) Chronic mental disorders in which there has been an insidious development of a permanent and unshakeable delusional system (persecutory delusions or delusions of jealousy), accompanied by preservation of clear and orderly thinking. Emotional responses and behavior are consistent with the delusional state.

(paranoid psychosis) Psychotic behavior accompanied by persecutory or grandiose delusions with few other signs of personality or thought disturbance.

Paranoia, the central theme of a group of psychotic disorders characterized by systematic delusions and of the nonpsychotic paranoid personality disorder. The word paranoia was used by the ancient Greeks, apparently in much the same sense as the modern popular term insanity. Since then it has had a...