D. J. Kevles
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Sometime back in the 16th century, we borrowed the word psyche directly from Greek into English. In Greek mythology, Psyche was a beautiful princess who fell in love with Eros (Cupid), god of love, and went through terrible trials before being allowed to marry him. The story is often understood to be about the soul redeeming itself through love. (To the Greeks, psyche also meant "butterfly", which suggests how they imagined the soul.) In English, psyche often sounds less spiritual than soul, less intellectual than mind, and more private than personality.
Examples of psyche in a Sentence
Sean Gregory, TIME, 11 Apr. 2024
By Meghan Rose Virgo This eclipse delves deep into your psyche, Virgo, urging you to confront and heal from financial or emotional entanglements.
—Glamour, 8 Apr. 2024
Though plenty of violent and action-packed sequences are sprinkled throughout the series, the musical selections and montages used to portray Gray’s memories and inner psyche strip these scenes of intensity.
—Aramide Tinubu, Variety, 31 Mar. 2024
Warning signs about her troubled psyche blink from the start.
—Dwight Garner, New York Times, 25 Mar. 2024
Meanwhile, the opening volley in its battle against one of America’s favorite companies is a killer start, not least in part because of an unusual degree of lawyerly insight into the human psyche.
—Sarah Jeong, The Verge, 22 Mar. 2024
Embedded deep in Macron’s psyche is the concept of being as ambiguous as possible so the Russians are kept guessing.
—Daniel Depetris, The Mercury News, 21 Mar. 2024
Carl Jung’s great ally turned rival, Sigmund Freud, proposed a model of the human psyche that acted much like a machine—repression and projection as twin pistons in the psychic engine.
—Frederick Kaufman, Harper's Magazine, 26 Feb. 2024
Those images have a direct impact on the collective psyche and consciousness of many of the people who see them.
—Ruhama Wolle, Glamour, 14 Mar. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'psyche.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near psyche
Cite this Entry
“Psyche.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/psyche. Accessed 19 Apr. 2024.
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psyche
noun
Medical Definition
psyche
noun
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