retrodiagnose

present singular third person retrodiagnoses · participle present retrodiagnosing · participle past retrodiagnosed · past retrodiagnosed

1. To retroactively diagnose a dead person with a medical or psychological condition.

   At the outset of his article on Cavendish, however, Sacks stated firmly that he was not just jumping on the bandwagon of retrodiagnosing famous geeks from history with a trendy disorder.

   2015, Steve Silberman, chapter 1, in Megan Newman, editor, NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity, New York: Avery, →ISBN, page 39

   2 more examples

   Rather than retrodiagnosing colonial patients through glimpses and gaps in their stories—was this one a paranoid schizophrenic? did that one suffer major depressive psychosis? was a third borderline?— […]

   2007, Richard C. Keller, Colonial Madness: Psychiatry in French North Africa, The University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 85

   It's still really important in medicine, of course, but now you can do anthropology with genetics, or retrodiagnose famous historical figures, or even do genetics-based origami and computing.

   2012, Sam Kean, The Violinist's Thumb: And Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code, Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN