Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To put into the right psychological frame of mind.
  • intransitive verb To excite emotionally.
  • intransitive verb To undermine the confidence of by psychological means; intimidate.
  • intransitive verb To analyze, solve, or comprehend.
  • intransitive verb To anticipate or guess the intentions of.
  • intransitive verb Informal To analyze and treat by psychoanalysis.
  • intransitive verb To become confused or mentally deranged.
  • noun Psychology.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An abbreviation of psychology.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Psychology or psychiatry.
  • noun A psychologist; a psychiatrist.
  • verb transitive To put (someone) into a required psychological frame of mind (also psych up).
  • verb transitive To intimidate (someone) emotionally or using psychology (also psych out).
  • verb transitive, informal To treat (someone) using psychoanalysis.
  • interjection slang Indicating that one's preceding statement was false and that one has successfully fooled one's interlocutor. Also sike.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Abbreviations.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word psych.

Examples

  • I call it psych, and some of that psych is bound to rub off.

    Writer Unboxed » Blog Archive » THE HOPE MACHINE 2010

  • This quote from Mises on behavioral psych is relevant to this issue of determinism, too:

    Testing the Freedom to Choose, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009

  • PS: Just to be clear, I think most evo-psych is BS.

    Assessing Fault 2009

  • If you have a beef with this particular hypothesis or if you feel that all of evo-psych is not science … then fine.

    Assessing Fault 2009

  • Catch the wayback machine and turn-on to far out fuzz swirlin 'psych, primitive beat shakers & mid-Sixties garage groovers, boss surf instros, hard hittin' power-pop and the most real gone Now Sounds of today!!

    Archive 2009-01-01 Patrick Owsley 2009

  • Apparently "evo psych" is an evolving science, and new ideas are replacing old.

    Assessing Fault 2009

  • Instead, his latest release reaffirms his hunger, and he's named it after one of his first bands, pre-Zeppelin psych rockers Band Of Joy.

    This week's new live music Andrew Clements 2010

  • Catch the wayback machine and turn-on to far out fuzz swirlin 'psych, primitive beat shakers & mid-Sixties garage groovers, boss surf instros, hard hittin' power-pop and the most real gone Now Sounds of today!!

    Archive 2009-05-01 Patrick Owsley 2009

  • In psychology classes I used to argue w/my professors - minor in psych and had many courses - about money being a motivator.

    Como Reading Blues (copy) ____Maggie 2007

  • Wrong, when I was in psych programs during college I had to take tests on behavioral psych and certain aspects of it.

    All those liars for Jesus 2007

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.