Psyche

How to spell psyche

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce psyche

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does psyche mean?

1. nounThe human mind, soul, or inner self, especially as the seat of thought and emotion.

Psyche in a sentence

• The therapist explored the deeper workings of her psyche.

• Years of pressure at work had damaged his fragile psyche.

Where does psyche come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word comes straight from the ancient Greek psukhe, which originally meant 'breath' and, by extension, the life-force that breathing represented, hence 'soul', 'spirit', or 'mind'. The Greeks personified it in the figure of Psyche, a mortal woman beloved by Eros (Cupid) whose name simply meant 'soul', and her story made the word a byword for the inner self. Latin took the term over as psyche, and English adopted it in the seventeenth century, at first in classical and philosophical writing about the soul. The same root powers a whole family of modern terms, including 'psychology', 'psychiatry', and 'psychic', all built on that Greek 'mind' element. The spelling trap is entirely down to that Greek ancestry: the silent initial 'p', the 'ch' pronounced as a hard 'k', and the final '-e' all reflect the Greek origin rather than English phonetics, which is exactly why fluent writers stumble over it.

How the word is built

• psych- (from Greek psukhe: breath, soul, mind)
• -e