Etymologically
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psychosis

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 1 November 2026 at 01:49. This address is a permanent link to this version.
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Pronunciation

  • UK: /saɪˈkəʊsɪs/[1]
  • US: /saɪˈkoʊsɪs/[1]

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

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