psychosis

Etymology

It is formed from English psyche + -osis,^[2][3][4][5] after German Psychose, which appears in 1845 in the German passage translated in the first English record, and after neurosis.^[2][3] Barnhart and Merriam-Webster call it a New Latin word,^[4][6] and the OED compares New Latin psychosis, used by 1846 in a German medical source, and French psychose (1859).^[2] Greek already had Ancient Greek ψύχωσις (psúkhōsis, “a giving of life, animation”),^[2][5][7][8] from ψυχόω (psukhóō, “to give life to”),^[7][8] from ψυχή (psukhḗ, “soul, mind, life”);^[7][8][5] the Oxford Dictionary of English and Dictionary.com derive the English word from it.^[8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Any disordered state of mind or mental illness: 1847, in an English translation of a German medical work.^[2][4][5][6]

Semantic evolution

The word at first covered any kind of mental disorder; it was later restricted to severe mental illness with a loss of contact with reality, often with hallucinations and delusions.^[2][3] In 1871 Huxley used it, on the pattern of neurosis, for mental activity or a single mental process, a sense now disused.^[2][7] The adjective psychotic followed in 1890, on the pattern of neurosis and neurotic, and became a noun in 1910.^[4]

Timeline

• 1847 – a disordered mental state.^[2][4]
• 1871 – mental activity (now disused).^[2]
• 1890 – psychotic, adjective.^[4]
• 1910 – psychotic, noun, a person with a psychosis.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A severe mental disorder in which a person's contact with reality is badly distorted, as by hallucinations or delusions; plural psychoses.^{[10][2][3][6]}
2. (now disused) Mental activity, or a single mental process.^[2][7]

Word family

• psychotic

Related words

• psyche
• neurosis
• psychic
• psychology

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c d e Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c d Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins