psychedelic
[sahy-ki-del-ik]
- of or noting a mental state characterized by a profound sense of intensified sensory perception, sometimes accompanied by severe perceptual distortion and hallucinations and by extreme feelings of either euphoria or despair.
- of, relating to, or noting any of various drugs producing this state, as LSD, mescaline, or psilocybin.
- resembling, characteristic of, or reproducing images, sounds, or the like, experienced while in such a state: psychedelic painting.
Show More
- a psychedelic drug.
- a person who uses such a substance.
Show More
Also psychodelic.
Origin of psychedelic
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Related Words
hallucinatorykaleidoscopicmulticoloredcrazyexperimentalmind-blowingtripfreakyconsciousness-expandinghallucinogenicmind-bendingmind-expandingpsychoactivepsychotomimeticpsychotropicExamples from the Web for psychedelic
Contemporary Examples
Miller traces his irreverent and subversive streak to a psychedelic experience during the particularly sweltering summer of 1991.
DJ Spooky Wants You To Question Everything You Know About Music, Technology, and PhilosophyOliver Jones
December 27, 2014
Prior to her marriage, she joined a psychedelic rock band, Hopewell, and toured with the band through Europe for five years.
The Sisterhood of Bulletproof Stockings: It’s Ladies’ Night for Hasidic RockersEmily Shire
September 30, 2014
Then a little consortium of people in the psychedelic community—especially the most credentialed ones—presented their evidence.
The means and approval to research the psychedelic on humans is few and far between.
By the mid-1990s, Kinkade had become to the evangelical movement what Peter Max was to the psychedelic Sixties.
psychedelic
psychodelic
- relating to or denoting new or altered perceptions or sensory experiences, as through the use of hallucinogenic drugs
- denoting any of the drugs, esp LSD, that produce these effects
- informal (of painting, fabric design, etc) having the vivid colours and complex patterns popularly associated with the visual effects of psychedelic states
Show More
Word Origin
C20: from psyche + Greek delos visible
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for psychedelic
adj.
occasionally psychodelic, 1956, of drugs, suggested by British-born Canadian psychiatrist Humphry Osmond (1917-2004) in a letter to Aldous Huxley and used by Osmond in a scientific paper published the next year; from Greek psykhe- "mind" (see psyche) + deloun "make visible, reveal," from delos "visible, clear," from PIE root *dyeu- "to shine" (see diurnal). In popular use from 1965 with reference to anything producing effects similar to that of a psychedelic drug or enhancing the effects of such a drug. As a noun from 1956.
Show More
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
psychedelic
(sī′kĭ-dĕl′ĭk)- Of, characterized by, or generating hallucinations, distortions of perception, altered states of awareness, and occasionally states resembling psychosis.
Show More
- A drug, such as LSD or mescaline, that produces such effects.
Show More
The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
psychedelic
[(seye-kuh-del-ik)]
A descriptive term for things that produce or are related to hallucinations, especially drugs such as LSD.
Show More
Note
Psychedelic art, most popular during the late 1960s and early 1970s, combines patterns, objects, light, and sound to simulate hallucinatory experiences.
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.