Word.ws English Dictionary

Polle syndrome

Polle syndrome noun: münchausen syndrome by proxy.

Noun

Polle syndrome (uncountable)

  1. Münchausen syndrome by proxy

Origin of Polle syndrome

Coined by Burman and Stevens, from the then-common belief that Baron Münchhausen's second wife gave birth to a daughter named Polle which the baron declared was not his. The term fell out of favour after 1984, when it was discovered that Polle was not the baby's name, but that of her mother's hometown.

Questions about Polle syndrome

What does Polle syndrome mean?
Polle syndrome means münchausen syndrome by proxy.
What part of speech is Polle syndrome?
Polle syndrome is a noun.

Words near Polle syndrome in the dictionary

  1. pollax
  2. pollaxe
  3. pollaxes
  4. pollbook
  5. pollbooks
  6. Polle syndrome
  7. polled
  8. polledness
  9. pollee
  10. pollees
  11. pollen

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Polle syndrome (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “Polle syndrome.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/polle_syndrome. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.