Telepath

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person who claims to communicate with others through the transmission of thoughts without using spoken or written language
2. An individual who is alleged to possess the capacity to communicate mentally with others, exchanging thoughts without verbal or written language
3. Someone believed to send and receive thoughts directly to others without speaking or writing

Etymology: "Telepath" is a back-formation from "telepathy," which came first. "Telepathy" was coined in 1882 by the English classicist Frederic W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, who combined the Greek "tele," meaning "far off," with "pathos," meaning "feeling" or "suffering." Myers was describing the idea that one mind could affect another across a distance without the usual senses. The word was built on the model of "sympathy" and "empathy," so its sense of feeling passing from one person to another was present from the start. "Telepath," the noun for a person said to possess this ability, was formed by shortening "telepathy," cutting the ending "-y" to produce a word that names the person rather than the faculty. Speakers did this so readily that the shorter form came to stand for the person, a pattern common in English when a new abstract noun is used to name its practitioner.

Synonyms: psychic, mind reader, clairvoyant

Antonyms: non-psychic, ordinary person