Mind & EmotionGreek → English
Psyche
/ˈsaɪki/noun
The mind considered as a whole, including its unconscious layers.
The Greek roots
ψυχή
psykhḗ
breath, life, soul
Literally: “breath”
Follow a root:ψυχή15 words
The story of the word
The root sense is breath, the thing that leaves the body at death, and Homer uses ψυχή for the shade that goes down to the underworld. The same word means butterfly in Greek, which is why ancient art shows the soul with wings. Psyche is also the mortal girl Eros fell in love with, and the modern psychological sense arrives only in the nineteenth century.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
psychologypsychiatrypsychedelic
In a sentence
Two years of unemployment left a mark on the national psyche.