multiple personality

American  

noun

Psychiatry.

1. a rare disorder in which an individual displays several functionally dissociated personalities, each of a complexity comparable to that of a normal individual.

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multiple personality British  

noun

1. Nontechnical name: split personality.  psychiatry a mental disorder in which an individual's personality appears to have become separated into two or more distinct personalities, each with its own complex organization

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Etymology

Origin of multiple personality

First recorded in 1900–05

Example Sentences

Throughout, Flournoy’s gift for weaving multiple personalities into a cohesive whole is on fine display.

From Los Angeles Times

“Because your primary multiple personality isn’t yours, it’s a real person.”

From Los Angeles Times

Some are wildly extravagant, proliferating heads and arms into delirious phantasms of multiple personality and manifold temperaments.

From Los Angeles Times

“I do believe that that’s why actors are actors because I think everybody is a multiple personality. Actors just choose to access it.”

From Los Angeles Times

An earlier version of this obituary referred incorrectly to the book in which the term multiple personality disorder was changed to dissociative identity disorder.

From New York Times