paranoid personality disorder n a personality disorder characterized by a pervasive pattern of distrust and suspicion of others resulting in a tendency to attribute the motives of others to malevolence
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[DSM-IV] a personality disorder marked by a view of other people as hostile, devious, and untrustworthy and a combative response to disappointments or to events experienced as rebuffs or humiliations. Notable are a questioning of the loyalty of friends, the bearing of grudges, a tendency to read threatening meanings into benign remarks, and unfounded suspicions of the fidelity of a partner. Unlike delusional disorder or paranoid schizophrenia, in which delusional or hallucinatory persecution occurs, it is not characterized by psychosis.Medical dictionary. 2011.