psychopath
Americannoun
-
psychopaths
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of psychopath
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How does psychopath compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
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.
Vocabulary lists containing psychopath
Common Senses: Path ("Feeling")
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Body Language: Psych ("Mind")
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Robin Williams (1951-2014) Tribute List
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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.
See Examples For:
He also denied telling her in 2024 that he had been diagnosed as a psychopath.
From BBC ● Aug. 11, 2026
A hyperactive psychopath, Skarsgård’s Little John is one of the movie’s rare treats.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 18, 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
You’d be unwise to look to the movies for economic insight—this one amounts to an extended fatuous argument that an individual who behaved like a corporate restructuring would be a psychopath.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 24, 2025
But I can’t see him as a psychopath.
From "The Girl on the Train" by Paula Hawkins
He was responding to an incident disclosed in recent days that shows why we probably shouldn’t make artificial psychopaths without at least thinking it through a bit.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2026
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
The psychopaths I’ve encountered in my career have been neither exceptionally bright nor socially able, nor at all charming.
From BBC ● Nov. 30, 2024
And psychopaths are far more concerned with their own power than preserving truth, democracy or even lives.
From Salon ● Nov. 29, 2023
When Ms. Rosario was working, which was almost all the time, Mosley stopped by to make sure Michael hadn’t been kidnapped by psychopaths or brainwashed by daytime television.
From "The First State of Being" by Erin Entrada Kelly
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.
