Etymologically
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psychopath

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 31 October 2026 at 22:53. This address is a permanent link to this version.
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Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈsaɪkəʊpæθ/, /ˈsaɪkəpæθ/[1]
  • US: /ˈsaɪkoʊˌpæθ/, /ˈsaɪkəˌpæθ/[1]

Etymology

It is formed from English psycho- + -path,[2][3][4][5] after psychopathic and psychopathy, both recorded from 1847;[2] the American Heritage Dictionary and Etymonline call it a back-formation from psychopathic.[6][7] Psycho- is from Ancient Greek ψυχή (psukhḗ, “soul, mind”),[2][7] and -path from -παθής (-pathḗs, “suffering”), from πάθος (páthos, “suffering”),[2][4][8] which Etymonline traces to Proto-Indo-European *kwent(h)- (“to suffer”).[7] Similar words appeared in other languages at the same time: the OED records it in Russian by 1856, French psychopathe by 1886 and German Psychopath by 1887.[2] Psychopathy itself first appears in the English translation of Feuchtersleben's German textbook of medical psychology (1845), after Psychopathie.[2][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A person who studies or treats disorders of the mind: 1858, in the New York Journal of Medicine; this sense was obsolete by 1895.[2]

Semantic evolution

The modern sense, a person with a mental disorder, especially one shown in persistent antisocial behaviour, is recorded from 1885, in Punch,[2][3] at first as a term of psychiatry and psychology.[2] It became current that year through a Russian trial in which a doctor named Balinsky won the acquittal of a woman who had murdered a little girl by arguing that she was a "psychopath";[7] the Daily Telegraph took the word for a new coinage, though a spiritualist paper replied that it had long been used among spiritualists in another sense.[7] Etymonline defines the 1885 sense as a morally irresponsible person, one who follows his impulses regardless of social codes.[7] Collins notes that the word is no longer a technical term in psychiatry, which compares sociopath, and that it is also used loosely of anyone who is persistently violent and antisocial.[9][4]

Timeline

  • 1847 – psychopathic and psychopathy, in a translation of Feuchtersleben.[2][7]
  • 1858 – a person who studies or treats mental disorders (obsolete by 1895).[2]
  • 1885 – a person with a mental disorder shown in antisocial behaviour.[2][3][7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A person with a severe antisocial personality disorder, marked by a lack of conscience or remorse and often by violent behaviour.[9][3][2]
  2. (informal) Loosely, any person who behaves in a persistently violent, cruel or unstable way.[9][4]

Word family

  • psychopathic
  • psychopathy

Usage notes

Collins marks the clinical sense as no longer in technical use in psychiatry, where the condition is described in other terms.[9] The first edition of the OED (1909) also allowed a pronunciation with the p sounded.[2]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  6. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  9. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins