Psychiatry

How to spell psychiatry

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce psychiatry

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does psychiatry mean?

1. nounThe branch of medicine concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness and emotional disorders.

Psychiatry in a sentence

• After medical school she chose to specialise in psychiatry.

• The hospital expanded its department of psychiatry to meet rising demand.

Where does psychiatry come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word is built entirely from Greek roots. The first part comes from psyche, which to the ancient Greeks meant 'breath', 'soul', or 'mind', the same root that gives us psychology and psyche itself. The second part comes from iatros, meaning 'healer' or 'physician', a root that also hides inside words like paediatrician (a healer of children) and geriatrics. Put together the parts literally mean 'healing of the mind'. The compound was actually coined in German as Psychiatrie by the physician Johann Christian Reil in 1808, and English adopted it in the nineteenth century as the medical study of mental illness took shape. The silent initial 'p' and the unexpected 'ch' (sounded as a hard 'k') are both fossils of the Greek spelling, and they are exactly what trips writers up.

How the word is built

• psych- (from Greek psyche: mind, soul)
• -iatr- (from iatros: healer, physician)
• -y (noun-forming suffix)