Mind & EmotionGreek → English
Psychosis
/saɪˈkəʊsɪs/noun
A severe mental state in which a person loses contact with external reality.
The Greek roots
ψυχή
psykhḗ
soul, mind
-ωσις
-ōsis
abnormal condition
Literally: “condition of the mind”
The story of the word
Coined in German medicine around 1841 by Karl Friedrich Canstatt, and given its modern shape by Ernst von Feuchtersleben, who used it to mark off illnesses of the mind from Cullen's neuroses of the nerves. The ending -ωσις does the same work in tuberculosis and thrombosis: a diseased state. The split between psychosis and neurosis governed psychiatry for a century before diagnostic manuals dropped it.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1840s
Same family
psychepsychoticneurosispsychiatry
In a sentence
The ward treats first-episode psychosis in people under twenty-five.