paranoicadj.n.

1857 R. G. Mayne Expos. Lexicon Med. Sci. (1860) Paranöicus, of or belonging to Paranœa: paranöic.

1887 Science 11 Feb. 141/2 The paranoic patient reacts more quickly than the normal man.

1907 Standard 21 Mar. 8/2 He is paranoic, and while insane, he is not insane in the eyes of the law, for, strictly speaking, he knows the nature and quality of his acts.

1952 W. J. H. Sprott Social Psychol. 244 The Haida Chief whose relative has died suspects supernatural persecution; with us he would be labelled ‘paranoic’ and sent for ‘treatment’.

1977 Times Lit. Suppl. 1 July 799/3 The paranoic fantasies to which Bely was prey in 1916, when he believed that he was a ‘human bomb’, under surveillance from a ‘dark-skinned man in a bowler hat’.

1998 T. C. Boyle Riven Rock 409 Overnight he became mistrustful and paranoic again.

1886 Science 17 Dec. (Suppl.) 568/2 Formerly our paranoics heard voices in the air; now they hear them through the telephone.

1907 Standard 22 Mar. 8/3 His medical advisers told him on February 15 that the prisoner was an incurable paranoic.

1975 F. Exley Pages from Cold Island vii. 118 As upstate yokel, and a raving paranoic into the bargain, I got instantly dizzy and fled immediately to a couch where I found myself seated next to Bellow's date.

1996 N. Gibbs et al. Mad Genius Introd. 2 There is a vital difference between the paranoid spokesman in politics and the clinical paranoic.

1976 Times Lit. Suppl. 28 May 648/1 The outline of a paranoically hostile Soviet Union.

1993 Tatler July 36/3 It may all sound like an enormous ego trip but they genuinely work as a cooperative, paranoically protecting the Group as an entity within the changing dynamic of fame.