Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Mental disorder, especially antisocial personality disorder.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Derangement of the mental functions.
  • noun The cure of the sick by psychical influence.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Med.) Mental disease. See psychosis, 2.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A personality disorder indicated by a pattern of lying, exploitation, heedlessness, arrogance, sexual promiscuity, low self-control, and lack of empathy and remorse. Violent and criminal offenses may be indicative of this disorder.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun any disease of the mind; the psychological state of someone who has emotional or behavioral problems serious enough to require psychiatric intervention

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From psycho- + -pathy.

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Examples

  • The word psychopathy dates back in an early form to the 19th century, but as a modern term it's primarily used in reference to the work of Canadian psychologist Robert Hare.

    Comments for Damn Interesting Lyzbeth 2010

  • It was only a matter of time before House tackled a psychopath, and of course it would have to be someone where the psychopathy was a curable symptom.

    Negative publishing : Bev Vincent 2010

  • One of the differences between anti-social personality disorder and psychopathy, which is not considered a mental illness, is that those who are psychopathic plan their acts of violence against others, whereas those who have anti-social personality disorder do not premeditate such acts.

    Robert David Jaffee: Lies and Lying Liars Hurt the Mentally Ill 2009

  • O'TOOLE: Yes, it seemed to have started early on and there's still -- the jury is still out as to whether or not psychopathy, which is a personality disorder, if there is a genetic link to that.

    CNN Transcript Feb 18, 2004 2004

  • Several areas of the brain have been shown to be implicated with antisocial personality disorder ASPD, commonly known as psychopathy or sociopathy.

    Ars Technica Jonathan M. Gitlin 2011

  • Later on, Valerie's sister revealed that their childhood hadn't been kind, that her psychopathy, which is obviously a symptom, may have started during puberty.

    BuddyTV 2010

  • First of all is the antisocial personality disorder, also known as psychopathy or sociopathy.

    Daily Rotten 2009

  • The instruments that would exhibit the core competencies for this position are the WAIS (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale) – which assesses his overall IQ, the MMPI-2 (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) – which assesses any pathological mental illnesses such as psychopathy and/or sociopathy, in particular, high school-level political science/civics and geography exit exams.

    Shoud a President Undergo Mental Health, IQ and Political Science/Civics and Basic Etiwuette Exams? 2007

  • Thus, we are subtly introduced to the two over-riding themes of the antisocial personality disorder (still labelled by many professional authorities "psychopathy" and "sociopathy"): an overwhelming dysphoria and an even more overweening drive to assuage this angst by belonging.

    Moral Deliberations in Modern Cinema Samuel Vaknin

  • Assuming it’s the same perp, assuming all the alleged suicides are really homicides, and with a caveat the size of your enormous ass, here’s a shot in the dark: antisocial personality disorder, more commonly known as psychopathy, but compounded by a phobia disorder, manifesting counterphobically.

    Fear Itself Jonathan Nasaw 2003

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