sociopath
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of sociopath
Compare meaning
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")
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
Frankenwords: Words with Roots from Different Languages
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
We the People: Soc
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
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 takes no sensual pleasure in his destruction of Othello and Cassio, just the studied satisfaction of a sociopath watching with appreciation, as if from a distance, the malignant results of his handiwork.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 9, 2026
As portrayed in “Death by Lightning,” Guiteau is a rotten-toothed, scheming, big-dreaming, delusional charlatan and possible sociopath.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 6, 2025
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
And he wasn’t a nutcase, he wasn’t a sociopath, he wasn’t an out-cast.
From "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer
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 not just false to say the childless are "sociopaths," as Vance has repeatedly asserted.
From Salon ● Aug. 13, 2024
That’s not to say that there aren’t sociopaths in the world, but I always think that people are the product of external forces.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 19, 2023
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.
