neurosis

Definition

A mental disorder, less severe than psychosis, marked by anxiety or fear which differ from normal measures by their intensity, which disorder results from a failure to compromise or properly adjust during the developmental stages of life, between normal human instinctual impulses and the demands of human society.

Etymology

From neuro- + -sis.

Example Sentences

• "On inquiry it was found that this neurosis corresponded in time with the oncome of the catamenia."
• "In the period from Spinoza to the end of the 19th century, the reading of design into nature received such devastating attacks from naturalists to non-naturalists alike that there developed an epistemological neurosis which Von Baer aptly termed “teleophobia.”"