Mind & EmotionGreek → English
Telepathy
/təˈlɛpəθi/noun
The supposed transfer of thought from one mind to another without any physical channel.
The Greek roots
τῆλε
têle
far off
πάθος
páthos
feeling, experience
Literally: “feeling at a distance”
The story of the word
Frederic W. H. Myers coined it in 1882 for the newly founded Society for Psychical Research, replacing the clumsier thought-transference. The timing matters: the telegraph and telephone had just made action at a distance ordinary, and telepathy was built on the same τῆλε to suggest a natural rather than a supernatural channel. A century of testing has produced no effect that survives replication.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1882
Same family
telephonetelescopesympathyempathy
In a sentence
We ordered the same thing without speaking, which he insisted was telepathy.