telepathy

[ tuh-lep-uh-thee ]
See synonyms for: telepathytelepathic on Thesaurus.com

noun
  1. communication between minds by some means other than sensory perception.

Origin of telepathy

1
First recorded in 1880–85; tele-1 + -pathy

Other words from telepathy

  • tel·e·path·ic [tel-uh-path-ik], /ˌtɛl əˈpæθ ɪk/, adjective
  • tel·e·path·i·cal·ly, adverb
  • non·tel·e·path·ic, adjective
  • non·tel·e·path·i·cal·ly, adverb

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use telepathy in a sentence

  • Once, before some ancient war of destruction, the people of this planet might have been normally telepathic.

    Indirection | Everett B. Cole
  • Complete telepathic blankness would have a high survival value.

    Indirection | Everett B. Cole
  • The table responded poorly; raps were made faintly and as if with reluctance; the telepathic reading of numbers did not succeed.

    Mysterious Psychic Forces | Camille Flammarion
  • But deep behind the telepathic barrier he had erected against her probing mind, he was thinking something else.

    The Penal Cluster | Ivar Jorgensen (AKA Randall Garrett)

British Dictionary definitions for telepathy

telepathy

/ (tɪˈlɛpəθɪ) /


noun
  1. psychol the communication between people of thoughts, feelings, desires, etc, involving mechanisms that cannot be understood in terms of known scientific laws: Also called: thought transference Compare telegnosis, clairvoyance

Origin of telepathy

1
C19: from tele- + Greek patheia feeling, perception: see -pathy

Derived forms of telepathy

  • telepathic (ˌtɛlɪˈpæθɪk), adjective
  • telepathically, adverb
  • telepathist, noun

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

Cultural definitions for telepathy

telepathy

[ (tuh-lep-uh-thee) ]


Knowledge conveyed from one individual to another without means of the five senses; mind reading. (See also extrasensory perception, parapsychology, and psychic research.)

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.