Psychic

How to spell psychic

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce psychic

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does psychic mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to supposed supernatural powers of the mind, or to the soul and mental processes.
2. nounA person who claims to perceive information hidden from ordinary senses, such as future events or thoughts.

Psychic in a sentence

• adjective

  She claimed to have psychic powers that let her predict events.

• noun

  The fairground psychic offered to read her palm for a small fee.

• adjective

  The detective dismissed any psychic explanation for the missing keys.

• noun

  A self-described psychic set up a booth at the seaside fair.

Where does psychic come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek psychikos, meaning 'of the soul' or 'of the life force', which was built on psyche, the word for 'soul, mind, or breath of life'. In Greek myth Psyche was also a mortal woman loved by Eros, and her name carried the sense of the living breath that animates a body. English adopted the term in the seventeenth century in the broad sense of 'relating to the soul or mind', and only in the nineteenth century, alongside the rise of spiritualism, did it narrow toward the modern meaning of supernatural mental perception. The same psyche root sits inside everyday relatives such as 'psychology' and 'psychiatry'. The spelling trap is entirely Greek in origin: the initial 'ps' keeps its silent p and the 'ch' is sounded as a hard k, just as in the original Greek letters.

How the word is built

• psych- (from Greek psyche: soul, mind)
• -ic (adjective/noun suffix)