pseudomanian.
/ˌs(j)uːdəʊˈmeɪnɪə/, /ˌs(j)uːdəʊˈmeɪnjə/, U.S. /ˌsudoʊˈmeɪniə/ Now rare.
A mania for lying; an insane tendency to make false statements.
ΚΠ
1876 J. H. Trumbull True-blue Laws Connecticut & New Haven 31 The best excuse that can be made for him is, that he was a victim of pseudomania; that his abhorrence of truth was in fact a disease.
1895 W. S. Lilly in 19th Cent. Oct. 629 Most of us have personally known sufferers from pseudomania.
1897 M. C. Tyler Lit. Hist. Amer. Revol. II. xi. 415 The honor of being described not as a liar, but as a victim of that magnificent ailment known as pseudomania.
1994 Cambr. Opera Jrnl. 6 42 Perhaps Bord was grasping for something of this sort when he called [Rosine] Stoltz a victim of ‘pseudomania’, her autobiographical narratives dominated by her alter ego, Léonor.
Derivatives
pseudoˈmaniac n. a person suffering from pseudomania.
ΚΠ
1895 W. S. Lilly in 19th Cent. Oct. 629 I once heard of a pseudomaniac who excused himself on the ground that he did not care to plagiarise from fact.
1929 R. Demos in D. T. W. McCord Once & for All 36 Lying may thus be a disease, and the patient a pseudomaniac, who can help lying no more than the kleptomaniac can help stealing.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2007; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1876