How to Use paranoia in a Sentence

paranoia

noun
  • I had to admit that my fears were just paranoia.
  • She was diagnosed with delusional paranoia.
  • The paranoia is strong in this score.
    — David Fear, Rolling Stone, 22 Jan. 2026
  • The shah’s paranoia made things worse.
    — Arash Azizi, The Atlantic, 5 Aug. 2025
  • That or their paranoia is just out of control.
    — David Zane Mairowitz, Rolling Stone, 22 Dec. 2025
  • His breakthrough came thanks to a bout of late-night paranoia.
    — Jp Mangalindan, Time, 19 June 2025
  • Will there be more paranoia about double agent demigods?
    — Sydney Bucksbaum, Entertainment Weekly, 21 Jan. 2026
  • There was not a vaccine at this point, so the paranoia was through the roof.
    — Jeymes Samuel, Los Angeles Times, 29 Dec. 2021
  • Still, the paranoia has settled in.
    — Rafaela Bassili, Vulture, 16 Apr. 2026
  • None of this requires paranoia.
    — Lauren Schuster, Miami Herald, 25 Mar. 2026
  • But the rhetoric of paranoia has crept into the house either way.
    — Rachel Syme, The New Republic, 9 Sep. 2019
  • So paranoia is a self that is terrorized and small and naked and afraid.
    — CBS News, 29 Mar. 2023
  • The best immune systems thrive on a healthy dose of paranoia.
    — Katherine J. Wu, The Atlantic, 8 June 2021
  • That kind of paranoia has kept my companies alive.
    — Allbusiness, Forbes.com, 23 June 2026
  • Indeed, critics have claimed these apps breed a kind of paranoia.
    — Hanna Kozlowska, Quartz, 29 Oct. 2019
  • Besides, there’s one more kernel of truth in the swirl of paranoia.
    — Marina Koren, The Atlantic, 12 Oct. 2024
  • But meth users may resist such treatment, spurred by paranoia brought on by the drug.
    — Ray Stern, USA TODAY, 11 Sep. 2024
  • Even with a vaccine, my paranoia from the last 12 months was still there.
    — Patrick Ryan, USA TODAY, 8 Mar. 2021
  • It’s laced with the right tenor and amount of paranoia and ends on an unsettling note.
    — Proma Khosla, IndieWire, 28 Nov. 2024
  • Gossip and paranoia spread to the market.
    — Sam Knight, New Yorker, 25 Aug. 2025
  • The fifth song off the singer’s new album Guts is cheeky and steeped in self-loathing and paranoia.
    — Erica Gonzales, ELLE, 7 Sep. 2023
  • The battle lines are drawn, the paranoia is growing, and the barbs are flying.
    — Vulture, 2 Mar. 2023
  • Come for the paranoia and tribalism, stay for the gut-punch ending.
    — Brian Truitt, USA TODAY, 21 Feb. 2025
  • The song was all about waiting with paranoia in the middle of the night for something to come and get you.
    — Chris Willman, Variety, 25 Sep. 2021
  • And the regime’s deepening paranoia has even turned inward.
    — Farida Elsebai, CNN Money, 20 Feb. 2026
  • No sadness mars the purity of its paranoia.
    — Anthony Lane, New Yorker, 22 Mar. 2026
  • Everywhere on the streets of Hong Kong paranoia hung thick in the air.
    — May-Ying Lam, Washington Post, 20 Apr. 2020
  • At the same time, paranoia was beginning to take hold in the company.
    — Andy Greenberg, Wired, 20 May 2021
  • There’s a bit of paranoia and caricature in this account of the bros with their golf clubs.
    — Max Holleran, The New Republic, 27 Sep. 2022
  • And the paranoia and suspicion that would arise out of that would be TV gold.
    — Dalton Ross, EW.com, 2 Mar. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'paranoia.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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