sociopath
Americannoun
-
sociopaths
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of sociopath
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How does sociopath compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
A sociopath is a person with a mental illness that manifests in extremely antisocial behavior and the inability to distinguish right from wrong. You're probably right to be afraid of a sociopath. Pathology means illness, and so socio- pathology means social illness. If someone is a sociopath, that means that they have a social sickness––they lack the ability to be social. Many movies and TV crime shows feature plots involving sociopaths, but hopefully the TV is the only place you ever encounter sociopaths.
Vocabulary lists containing sociopath
Common Senses: Path ("Feeling")
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Frankenwords: Words with Roots from Different Languages
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We the People: Soc
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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:
In one scene it lingers for what struck me as an inexplicably, even discomfitingly long time on the handsome face of a young sociopath pranking a pair of little kids with small stones.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 4, 2026
The actor could easily put his skills to use playing a duplicitous sociopath in a psychological drama, but as a comedy “Killing” is simply dead.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 19, 2026
It is, unfortunately, the heyday of the harmful sociopath and the abusive clinical narcissist.
From Salon ● Feb. 12, 2025
A simpler way of putting it is that Pelicot has an antisocial personality disorder - a term preferred by psychiatrists these days to words such as psychopath or sociopath.
From BBC ● Dec. 20, 2024
Incidentally, Malcolm also thought that Matthew was a sociopath.
From "Confessions of a Murder Suspect" by James Patterson
One of the theater’s more prominent sociopaths gets a makeover in “Hedda,” director Nia DaCosta’s reimagining of “Hedda Gabler,” with an approach that opens up the play—and an interpretive can of worms.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 28, 2025
Psychologists, too, make this mistake, believing that sociopaths are not strategic but, rather, mentally ill, because they were traumatized in childhood.
From Slate ● Oct. 29, 2024
It's just his special flourish to imagine the secret leaders are cat-loving, child-hating sociopaths.
From Salon ● Aug. 13, 2024
“Not all sociopaths are dangerous criminals. They’re not going to be easy to spot. They’re not going to be stereotypical monsters. You could be sleeping next to one. You could have, in fact, birthed one.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 2, 2024
I’ve heard about sociopaths, people who connect with no one but themselves and their own self-interests.
From "The Adoration of Jenna Fox" by Mary E. Pearson
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.
