Psychology

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /saɪˈkɒl.ə.d͡ʒɪ/

Definitions

1. The scientific study of the mind, mental processes, and human behavior
2. The systematic investigation of mental phenomena, cognitive processes, and behavioral patterns in individuals and groups
3. A discipline examining how thoughts, emotions, and actions arise from brain function and environmental influences

Etymology: The word looks like a modern science, but its earliest traceable form is a Renaissance Latin title. Its first attestation in the 1570s shows it was already in use then, and it may have been a Greek-style version of a common Latin phrase, "de anima" ("on the soul"), which scholars often used as the heading for books about the mind. A Croatian humanist, Marko Marulić (1450–1524), is sometimes credited with coining the Latin term in a lost treatise, but other scholars dispute this. The pieces are plain enough. Ancient Greek "psukhē" meant "soul" or "breath of life," and "-logia" meant "study of" or "discourse about," as in "theology." Put together, the term literally meant "the study of the soul," a sense that predates any experimental science of the mind by centuries. It reached English through French "psychologie," which was borrowed from the Latin. The word's meaning shifted from the soul itself to the mind and behavior that modern laboratories study, while the Greek root stayed the same.

Synonyms: study of the mind, mental science, behavioral science