psychopath

American  

[sahy-kuh-path] / ˈsaɪ kəˌpæθ /

noun

• psychopaths
  plural

1. a person with a psychopathic personality, which manifests as amoral and antisocial behavior, lack of ability to love or establish meaningful personal relationships, extreme egocentricity, failure to learn from experience, etc.

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psychopath British  

/ ˈsaɪkəʊˌpæθ /

noun

1. Also called: sociopath.  a person afflicted with a personality disorder characterized by a tendency to commit antisocial and sometimes violent acts and a failure to feel guilt for such acts

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psychopath Cultural  

1. A mentally unbalanced person who is inclined toward antisocial and criminal behavior. (Compare sociopath.)

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• psychopathic
  adjective
• psychopathically
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• psychopaths
  plural

Etymology

Origin of psychopath

First recorded in 1880–85; psycho- + -path

Compare meaning

How does psychopath compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• sociopath vs. psychopath

Explanation

It would be unfortunate to end up alone in an elevator with a psychopath. A psychopath is a mentally ill person with violent tendencies. Psychopath is a psychiatric term that refers to a person suffering from a mental illness involving violent behavior or various kinds of abnormal social interactions. A person who's been diagnosed as a psychopath has a lot of trouble interacting with other people and living a normal life. The noun psychopath is also used casually to mean simply a bizarre or unpredictably violent person. The word comes from the Greek words for "mind" and "suffering": psykhe and pathos.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

psychopath psychopaths

He also denied telling her in 2024 that he had been diagnosed as a psychopath.

From BBC ● Aug. 11, 2026

Dressed in a shabby old coat and chic beret—“a look halfway between woman of mystery and lobster fisher”—Nora aims to thwart a dangerous psychopath while protecting the policeman with whom she’s increasingly smitten.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 5, 2026

The Apple TV series remake about a psychopath seeking revenge on a lawyer, played this time by Amy Adams, nods to its predecessors while including new twists.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 5, 2026

Not everyone with psychopathic traits commits crimes, and not every person who commits a crime is a psychopath, but research has consistently linked psychopathy with a higher risk of violent behavior.

From Science Daily ● May 10, 2026

Even if he did think she was a perverted psychopath who wrote herself badly punctuated threats.

From "Eleanor & Park" by Rainbow Rowell

Historically, we have pathologized people who lack such impulses; they are known as psychopaths, and their qualities have been deemed incompatible with a functioning society.

From Slate ● Jan. 9, 2026

"There's a subset of people, like 1% of the population, who are psychopaths, who are not worried about the vulnerable, who are worried first and foremost about cementing power and gaining status."

From Salon ● Mar. 1, 2025

A lot of the stories I was reading were about narcissistic men and psychopaths, and how they operate.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 23, 2024

And contrary to common belief, very few killers are in fact psychopaths, especially domestic homicide perpetrators like the Menendez brothers.

From BBC ● Nov. 30, 2024

Mental note: There are now two confirmed psychopaths in our party of five.

From "Dry" by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman

Related Words

• lunatic
• maniac
• psycho
• sociopath