psychic

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English[edit]

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Etymology[edit]

From Ancient Greek ψυχικός (psukhikós, “relative to the soul, spirit, mind”). Earlier referred to as "psychical"; or from Ancient Greek ψυχή (psukhḗ, “soul, mind, psyche”). First appeared (as substantive) 1871 and first records 1895.[1]

Pronunciation[edit]

  • IPA(key): /ˈsaɪkɪk/
  • Audio (Southern England)(file)
  • Rhymes: -aɪkɪk

Noun[edit]

psychic (plural psychics)

  1. A person who possesses, or appears to possess, extra-sensory abilities such as precognition, clairvoyance and telepathy, or who appears to be susceptible to paranormal or supernatural influences.
  2. (parapsychology) A person who supposedly contacts the dead; a medium.
  3. (Gnosticism) In gnostic theologian Valentinus' triadic grouping of man the second type; a person focused on intellectual reality (the other two being hylic and pneumatic).

Translations[edit]

Adjective[edit]

psychic (comparative more psychic, superlative most psychic)

  1. Relating to or having the abilities of a psychic.
    You must be psychic—I was just about to say that.
    She is a psychic person—she hears messages from beyond.
    • 1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “(please specify the chapter number)”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019:
      Having exhausted the sporting adventures of this terrestrial globe, he is now turning to those of the dim, dark and dubious regions of psychic research.
  2. Relating to the psyche or mind, or to mental activity in general.
    • 1913, Abraham Brill, transl., The Interpretation of Dreams, translation of original by Sigmund Freud:
      In the following pages I shall demonstrate that there is a psychological technique which makes it possible to interpret dreams, and that on the application of this technique every dream will reveal itself as a psychological structure, full of significance, and one which may be assigned to a specific place in the psychic activities of the waking state.
    • 1967, R. D. Laing, The Politics of Experience and the Bird of Paradise:
      A pathological process called 'psychiatrosis' may well be found, by the same methods, to be a delineable entity, with somatic correlates, and psychic mechanisms […]
    • 1979 August 25, Barbara Smith, “Black Feminists”, in Gay Community News, volume 7, number 6, page 4:
      Merely by comprehending this, the lack of support that black feminists have for being black feminists, white women might be able to give at least psychic and preferably practical support to black women who they know and not assume that it means the same thing for us to be feminists and lesbians as it does for them to be feminists and lesbians.

Derived terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

Related terms[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “psychic”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
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