alienist
Americannoun
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(formerly) a doctor specializing in the treatment of mental illness.
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an expert witness in a sanity trial.
noun
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a psychiatrist who specializes in the legal aspects of mental illness
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obsolete a person who practises alienism
Etymology
Origin of alienist
1860–65; alien(ation) + -ist; compare French aliéniste in same sense
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The team of sleuths, led by the analytical, dispassionate alienist Kreizler, moved within that world's beauties and grotesqueries quite smoothly.
From Salon • Jul. 19, 2020
Daniel Brühl stars as Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, an alienist who studies deviant behavior and has a specialty practice in treating “damaged” children.
From Washington Post • Jan. 21, 2018
In this new series, Ives undergoes counselling with an alienist psychotherapist, and later appears in a padded cell with tears streaming down her face, hissing ominously at her doctors: “You think you know evil?”
From The Guardian • May 3, 2016
The drama is a gothic mashup of Dracula, Dorian Gray, Frankenstein, steampunk aesthetics, vampires, werewolves, diabolical possession and obsolete alienist psychiatry.
From The Guardian • May 3, 2016
I feel that she is likely to get an alienist in at any time.
From Outside Inn by Kelley, Ethel M. (Ethel May)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
