Standard Lemma guide

psychosis

noun · 2 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

  • Received-Pronunciation: /saɪˈkəʊsɪs/
  • Southern-England: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
  • General-American: /saɪˈkoʊsɪs/
  • rhymes with -əʊsɪs
  • homophone: sycosis
  • CMU ARPABET: S AY0 K OW1 S AH0 S Digits mark lexical stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.

1

noun

Meaning 1

A severe mental disorder, sometimes with physical damage to the brain, marked by a deranged personality and a distorted view of reality.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: countable, uncountable

Topics: human-sciences, psychology, sciences

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

2

noun

Meaning 2

any severe mental disorder in which contact with reality is lost or highly distorted

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

Broader terms: mental illness, mental disease, psychopathy

Narrower terms: delirium tremens, DTs, paranoia, schizophrenia, schizophrenic disorder, schizophrenic psychosis, dementia praecox

History

Etymology

From psych- + -osis or from Ancient Greek ψύχωσις (psúkhōsis, “animation, principle of life”).

Across languages

Translations

52 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Arabic: ذُهَان (ḏuhān) — mental disorder
  • Armenian: փսիխոզ (pʻsixoz) — mental disorder
  • Azerbaijani: psixoz — mental disorder
  • Basque: psikosi — mental disorder
  • Belarusian: псіхо́з (psixóz) — mental disorder
  • Breton: psikosis — mental disorder
  • Bulgarian: психоза (psihoza) — mental disorder
  • Catalan: psicosi — mental disorder
  • Chinese Mandarin: 精神錯亂 /精神错乱 (jīngshén cuòluàn) — mental disorder
  • Chinese Mandarin: 精神症 (jīngshénzhèng) — mental disorder
  • Chinese Mandarin: 思覺失調 /思觉失调 (sījué shītiáo) — mental disorder
  • Czech: psychóza — mental disorder
  • Danish: psykose — mental disorder
  • Dutch: psychose — mental disorder
  • Esperanto: psikozo — mental disorder
  • Estonian: psühhoos — mental disorder
  • Finnish: psykoosi — mental disorder
  • French: psychose — mental disorder
  • Georgian: ფსიქოზი (psikozi) — mental disorder
  • German: Psychose — mental disorder
  • Greek: ψύχωση (psýchosi) — mental disorder
  • Hungarian: pszichózis — mental disorder
  • Ido: psikozo — mental disorder
  • Indonesian: psikosis — mental disorder
  • Irish: síocóis — mental disorder
  • Italian: psicosi — mental disorder
  • Japanese: 精神病 (seishinbyō) — mental disorder
  • Kazakh: психоз (psixoz) — mental disorder
  • Korean: 정신증 (jeongsinjeung) — mental disorder
  • Latvian: psihoze — mental disorder
  • Lithuanian: psichozė — mental disorder
  • Macedonian: психоза (psihoza) — mental disorder
  • Māori: mate ahotea — mental disorder
  • Norwegian Bokmål: psykose — mental disorder
  • Norwegian Nynorsk: psykose — mental disorder
  • Occitan: psicòsi — mental disorder
  • Persian: پسیکوز (psikoz) — mental disorder
  • Persian: روان پریشی (ravân-pariši) — mental disorder
  • Polish: psychoza — mental disorder
  • Portuguese: psicose — mental disorder
  • Romanian: psihoză — mental disorder
  • Russian: психо́з (psixóz) — mental disorder
  • Sicilian: pissicusi — mental disorder
  • Sicilian: psicusi — mental disorder
  • Slovak: psychóza — mental disorder
  • Spanish: psicosis — mental disorder
  • Swedish: psykos — mental disorder
  • Tagalog: sikosis — mental disorder
  • Turkish: psikoz — mental disorder
  • Ukrainian: психо́з (psyxóz) — mental disorder
  • Welsh: seicosis — mental disorder
  • Welsh: gorffwylledd — mental disorder
Real reading context

psychosis in complete knowledge articles