ノイローゼ
Meaning in Englishneurosis (GER: Neurose)
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Word context
What it means
A neurosis; a non-psychotic mental state marked by anxiety and emotional strain, often used in everyday language to describe someone who is overly worried or stressed.
Main meanings
- 1) neurosis as a psychiatric condition characterized by anxiety and distress
- 2) neurosis or neurotic tendency used colloquially to describe someone who is highly anxious or sensitive
- 3) nervous breakdown or breakdown under stress, sometimes used in media or casual speech
How to use it
Used in casual speech to describe someone who seems under stress or anxious (ノイローゼ気味, ノイローゼになる). In medical or academic contexts the term 神経症 is preferred to denote a clinical neurosis; usage varies by formality, with the loanword common in everyday talk and media.
Variants and close terms
- 神経症 (shinkeishō) – formal medical term for neurosis
- 神経衰弱 (shinkeisuijaku) – neurasthenia, historical notion of nervous exhaustion
Etymology
Neurose (German term for neurosis) borrowed into Japanese as ノイローゼ; the katakana rendering reflects a direct phonetic adaptation, with a long vowel (ō) represented in romaji as noirōze.
Origin
Introduced to Japanese medical and public discourse during the Meiji period via Western psychiatry, spreading from German clinical texts and later used in popular language to denote anxiety-driven distress or a neurotic temperament.
Word class
loanword (noun) in English usage, Japanese loanword (ノイローゼ) and formal Japanese noun 神経症