Munchausen syndrome

[muhn-chou-zuhn sin-drohm, muhnch-hou-zuhn]

noun

Psychiatry.

1. a factitious disorder in which otherwise healthy individuals seek to hospitalize themselves with feigned or self-induced pathology in order to receive surgical or other medical treatment.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Munchausen syndrome¹

1950–55; named after Baron von Münchhausen ( def. ), whose fictionalized accounts of his own experiences suggest symptoms of the disorder