Maranoia

//ˌmæɹ.əˈnɔɪ.ə// noun, slang

noun, slang ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Anxiety, fear, or nervousness experienced by some individuals before or during a marathon. colloquial, uncommon, uncountable, usually

    "And if I’m not stewing over a less-than-perfect training cycle then I’m mentally counting down the hours until I need to get up and prepare because, of course, I didn’t sort out my raceday essentials until the very last minute. No matter how many times I sign up, the state of ‘maranoia’ I work myself into is real."

Example

More examples

"And if I’m not stewing over a less-than-perfect training cycle then I’m mentally counting down the hours until I need to get up and prepare because, of course, I didn’t sort out my raceday essentials until the very last minute. No matter how many times I sign up, the state of ‘maranoia’ I work myself into is real."

Etymology

Blend of marathon + paranoia.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.