kleptomnesia.
The situation where a person comes up with an idea that they believe to be original, but which was in fact created by someone else and previously encountered by the person.
Meaning & usage
The situation where a person comes up with an idea that they believe to be original, but which was in fact created by someone else and previously encountered by the person.
Where this word comes from
Coined by Dan Gilbert in or before 1999.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.