an act or instance of seeking to intimidate, make nervous, mislead, etc., in order to gain an advantage.
Trash talk and psych-outs are common along the starting line of a horse race.
an intense, uncontrolled emotional reaction, or something that causes such a reaction.
The song is an eight-minute psych-out that exudes passion and never loses its sense of power pop.
to guess correctly the intentions of (another); outguess
to analyse or solve (a problem, etc) psychologically
to intimidate or frighten
(intr, adverb) to lose control psychologically; break down
Analyze or understand something; also, anticipate the intentions of someone, as in It's hard to psych out the opposition's thinking, but we have to try .
Undermine the confidence of, intimidate. For example, The basketball team managed to psych out their opponents' guards . This expression is often used in the passive and can mean “lose one's nerve,” as in After I learned that he had two doctorates in the field, I was completely psyched out . Both slangy usages date from the second half of the 1900s and allude to influencing someone psychologically.
First recorded in 1955–60; noun use of verb phrase psych out
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
A lot of those moves were modeled on Muhammad Ali’s, especially his psych-out job on Sonny Liston.
From New York Times ● Feb. 28, 2020
Nick's uncanny talent puts him in the same category as all of your favorite mentalists, psych-out artists, mnemonic superfreaks, intuitive geniuses, and human lie detectors enforcing the law elsewhere on television.
From Slate ● Oct. 28, 2011
Across the field, Vanessa is making a show of getting into her blocks, running through her psych-out routine.
From "The Running Dream" by Wendelin Van Draanen
I think it hard, trying to cancel Vanessa’s psych-out.
From "The Running Dream" by Wendelin Van Draanen
The Garden’s bad blood toward Green, who seemed to psych out the Celtics in Game 2, took a back seat early to Boston’s crisp play.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 9, 2022
In the N.B.A., the fans are imbued with the power to influence the refs, psych out free-throw shooters and generally mess with players’ heads.
From New York Times ● Sep. 4, 2020
“Every group setting has a hierarchy of power and interrelated networks. The first order of business is to psych out this order, then decide where you and your skills fit into it.”
From US News ● Sep. 30, 2014
That comment sent the Tokyo money market into a brief but frantic spin as traders tried to psych out Miller's intentions.
From Time Magazine Archive
Thus an inferior athletic team "sells woof tickets," trying to psych out its opponents.
From Time Magazine Archive
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.
