Word.ws English Dictionary

true-believer syndrome

true-believer syndrome noun: a phenomenon in which witnesses to a staged event continue to believe in its authenticity even after it has been debunked.

Noun

true-believer syndrome (uncountable)

  1. A phenomenon in which witnesses to a staged event continue to believe in its authenticity even after it has been debunked.

Origin of true-believer syndrome

Coined by M. Lamar Keene in his book The Psychic Mafia (1976).

Questions about true-believer syndrome

What does true-believer syndrome mean?
True-believer syndrome means a phenomenon in which witnesses to a staged event continue to believe in its authenticity even after it has been debunked.
What part of speech is true-believer syndrome?
True-believer syndrome is a noun.

Words near true-believer syndrome in the dictionary

  1. true weevils
  2. true yam
  3. true yams
  4. true yeast
  5. true yeasts
  6. true-believer syndrome
  7. true-blue
  8. true-born
  9. true-bred
  10. true-false
  11. true-hearted

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: true-believer 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.

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