megalomania
Americannoun
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Psychiatry. a symptom of mental illness marked by delusions of greatness, wealth, etc.
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an obsession with doing extravagant or grand things.
noun
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a mental illness characterized by delusions of grandeur, power, wealth, etc
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informal a lust or craving for power
Other Word Forms
- megalomaniac adjective
- megalomaniacal adjective
Etymology
Origin of megalomania
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
He “has mystical tendencies, no common sense, and a Wagnerian taste for heroics and death. He was born loaded with vanities and has developed megalomania as his final decoration.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 19, 2026
Some superstars hide their megalomania under humility; Williams shields his tenderness with jokes about being a narcissist, only exposing his wounds in his muscular, vulnerable lyrics.
From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 24, 2024
As innumerable clinical psychologists have pointed out, both share megalomania and unbridled malignant narcissism.
From Salon • Jan. 28, 2024
The dictator’s globally ruinous megalomania engendered some internal resistance, and Ulrich von Hassell’s part in the famous assassination plot of July 20, 1944, would land him in Plötzensee Prison in Berlin.
From Seattle Times • Oct. 1, 2023
Fortunately for England, his nature was too restless and domineering to admit of the necessary concentration of effort on the naval problem; and that besetting sin, megalomania, marred prospects which then seemed easily realizable.
From William Pitt and the Great War by Rose, John Holland
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
