paranoia (par-ah-noy'ah). i

A term applied loosely to various mental diseases limited to a small group by Kraepelin of slowly progre ive, non-dementi ary delusional psychoses. 2. Chronic delusional psychosis. A functional psychosis, starting from a degenerative condition. It is almost always accompanied with hallucinations and more or le systematized delusions. The course is neither continuous nor uniform, but is e entially chronic, acute p. Of Mendel, p. coming on without prodromes and characterized by a delusion of vague persecutions without persecutors, intermediate p. P. in which there are no delusions, but in which there is a tendency to quibbling or quarreling, p. corrupt a. See diastrephia. [Gr., para, beside, + nous, the mind.]