| Noun | 1. | dementia praecox - any of several psychotic disorders characterized by distortions of reality and disturbances of thought and language and withdrawal from social contactpsychosis - any severe mental disorder in which contact with reality is lost or highly distorted paranoic type schizophrenia, paranoid schizophrenia, paraphrenia, paraphrenic schizophrenia - a form of schizophrenia characterized by delusions (of persecution or grandeur or jealousy); symptoms may include anger and anxiety and aloofness and doubts about gender identity; unlike other types of schizophrenia the patients are usually presentable and (if delusions are not acted on) may function in an apparently normal manner | |