schizophrenic

American  

[skit-suh-fren-ik] / ˌskɪt səˈfrɛn ɪk /

adjective

1. Psychiatry. of or relating to schizophrenia.

   Not all of these patients are schizophrenic.

2. of or relating to conflicting or inconsistent elements; characterized by unusual disparity.

   It wavers from comedy to thriller to docudrama—a totally schizophrenic plot!

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noun

Psychiatry.

• schizophrenics
  plural

1. a person with schizophrenia.

   Schizophrenics are often unable to focus on certain objects.

schizophrenic British  

/ ˌskɪtsəʊˈfrɛnɪk /

adjective

1. exhibiting symptoms of schizophrenia

2. informal experiencing or maintaining contradictory attitudes, emotions, etc

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noun

1. a schizophrenic person

Usage

It is preferable to refer to a person as someone with a diagnosis of schizophrenia rather than as a schizophrenic . The general use of the word to mean 'contradictory' is also best avoided. Suitable alternatives are contradictory , inconsistent , incoherent

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• schizophrenics
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of schizophrenic

First recorded in 1910–15; schizophren(ia) ( def. ) + -ic ( def. )

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Explanation

If you are schizophrenic, you suffer from a mental disorder that includes auditory hallucinations and paranoid behavior. Schizophrenics used to be thought to have "split personalities," and the roots of the word attests to that early understanding. The word schizophrenia combines the Greek skhizein, "split," and phren, "mind." Now, the disease is understood differently, but schizophrenic is still sometimes used to refer to anything that changes erratically. A movie that's alternately enthralling and boring might be said to be schizophrenic in its pacing.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

schizophrenic schizophrenics

In 1905 Jacob Mohr, a German schizophrenic, believed that he was being targeted by an “oscillatory wave transmission device” and was found, on admission to hospital, to be wearing sheets of tinfoil under his clothes.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026

Martin Luther King Jr described America as manifesting a "schizophrenic personality" long before the nationwide disillusionment with the Dream began.

From BBC ● Jul. 2, 2026

Pace had “a rather schizophrenic career,” according to the Encyclopedia of African American Actresses in Film and Television by Bob McCann.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 16, 2026

The Times quickly issued two formal corrections: The link to incitement was not clear, or plausibly fuzzy, it turned out: The shooter was not a partisan zealot but a schizophrenic.

From Slate ● Apr. 16, 2025

Their symptoms ranged from impairment of memory to schizophrenic and depressive reactions.

From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson

Increased lactate levels and reduced pH in postmortem brains of schizophrenics: medication confounds.

From Science Daily ● Mar. 26, 2024

Based on a controversial early 1960s psychiatric case study, “Three Christs” stars Peter Dinklage, Walton Goggins and Bradley Whitford as institutionalized paranoid schizophrenics, each of whom believes himself to be Jesus.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 4, 2020

But I’ve lived to be older than my father, his father, and my great grandfather, despite coming from a long line of manic depressives and schizophrenics going back to the Mayflower.

From New York Times ● Apr. 3, 2018

Most were schizophrenics and epileptics at the now-defunct State Hospital for Mental Diseases in Howard, Rhode Island, where Delgado’s occasional collaborator Hannibal Hamlin was a staff psychiatrist.

From Scientific American ● Oct. 1, 2017

And, indeed, there may be something wrong with the apparatus in schizophrenics; they have, it is said, an unfamiliar odor, recently attributed to trans-3- methylhexanoic acid, in their sweat.

From "The Lives of a Cell" by Lewis Thomas

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