Psychics

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Individuals who claim to possess abilities to perceive information beyond normal human senses
2. People who are thought to have intuitive insights or foretell future events through extrasensory means
3. Practitioners involved in interpreting spiritual phenomena or connecting with non-physical entities to gain knowledge

Etymology: "Psychics" is simply the plural of "psychic," so the story belongs to the adjective that was later made into a noun. That adjective comes from Ancient Greek "psukhikos," meaning "relative to the soul, spirit, or mind," which itself grows from "psukhe," the word for breath, soul, or mind. The Greek root gave English a whole family of terms about the mind, but the sense of "psychic" as a person with supernatural perception came much later. The noun use first appeared in 1871, when the adjective was turned into a substantive for people claiming such powers. Earlier English forms of the word had been "psychical," and the adjective's association with the paranormal developed in the nineteenth century, when interest in spiritualism and séances was widespread. The plural "psychics" follows the same pattern as any other countable noun.

Synonyms: mediums, seers