dissociative

American  

[di-soh-see-uht-iv, di-soh-shee-ayt-iv, -suht-iv] / dɪˈsoʊ si ət ɪv, dɪˈsoʊ ʃiˌeɪt ɪv, -sət ɪv /

adjective

1. Psychiatry. relating to or exhibiting a condition in which a group of mental processes is split off from the main body of consciousness, as in amnesia or certain forms of hysteria.

2. Physical Chemistry. relating to, tending toward, or exhibiting the reversible resolution or decomposition of a complex substance into simpler components.

3. relating to a disjunction or separation between two or more things.

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Example Sentences

There are so many overwhelming ideas in “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” that, at over two hours, it does have the sense of a dissociative doomscroll.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 12, 2026

Now you are living in a world that is constantly dissociative thanks to social media.

From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 24, 2025

One person experiencing a dissociative episode was not seen for a psychological evaluation for five months, and the evaluations often lasted “maybe five minutes,” one said, done without privacy through the door of the cell.

From New York Times • Feb. 6, 2024

Her lawyer has said Snyder had severe depression, borderline personality disorder, dissociative disorder and other mental illness at the time of the homicides.

From Seattle Times • Nov. 17, 2023

Very few had taken to agriculture, for which, indeed, the dry soil was seldom fitted, and the half-nomadic life of stock-farmers, each pasturing his cattle over great tracts of country, confirmed their dissociative instincts.

From Impressions of South Africa by Bryce, James Bryce, Viscount