psychopath
pronunciation
How to pronounce psychopath in British English:
UK [ˈsaɪkəpæθ]
How to pronounce psychopath in American English:
US [ˈsaɪkəˌpæθ]
-
- Noun:
- someone with a sociopathic personality; a person with an antisocial personality disorder (`psychopath' was once widely used but has now been superseded by `sociopath')
Word Origin
- psychopath (n.)
- 1885, in the criminal psychology sense, a back-formation from psychopathic. The Daily Telegraph had, the other day, a long article commenting on a Russian woman who had murdered a little girl. A Dr. Balinsky prevailed upon the jury to give a verdict of acquittal, because she was a "psychopath." The Daily Telegraph regards this term as a new coinage, but it has been long known amongst Spiritualists, yet in another sense. ["The Medium and Daybreak," Jan. 16, 1885] The case alluded to, and the means of acquittal, were briefly notorious in England and brought the word into currency in the modern sense.
Example
- 1. This would I think be the portrait of a psychopath .
- 2. So here 's the statistics : one in a hundred regular people is a psychopath .
- 3. And I spoke to other experts , and they said the pinstriped suit -- classic psychopath .
- 4. When the defence simply told the judges that the convict was a psychopath , the average sentence was 14 years .