Meaning & use
psychic
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Meanings
nouncountable
Someone who claims to sense things that ordinary senses cannot, such as thoughts or future events.
Grammar: A count noun for a person: she consulted a psychic.
Patterns
- consult a psychic
She visited a psychic who claimed to see her future.
The psychic said she could sense a message from the past.
Police were skeptical when a psychic offered to help find the missing man.
adjectivecomparable
Seeming to have the power to read minds or know things beyond ordinary senses.
Grammar: Often used jokingly when someone guesses your thoughts: You must be psychic!
Patterns
- psychic powers
- be psychic
He has psychic powers, or at least he always knows what I'm thinking.
How did you know I wanted tea? Are you psychic?
The fair had a booth with a psychic fortune teller.
adjectivebefore a nounformal
Relating to the mind and mental processes rather than the body.
Grammar: Formal or technical: psychic energy, psychic distress.
Patterns
- psychic pain
- psychic energy
The therapist described the patient's psychic distress after the accident.
Freud wrote about the psychic costs of repression.
Loss of a job can cause real psychic pain.
Word forms
| plural | psychics |
|---|
Common combinations
- psychic powers
- The character in the novel had psychic powers.
- psychic ability
- She claimed to have psychic ability since childhood.
- consult a psychic
- He consulted a psychic before making the decision.
- psychic reading
- The psychic reading cost more than he expected.
- psychic pain
- Grief can feel like psychic pain.
- psychic phenomena
- Researchers tested claims of psychic phenomena.
Synonyms and how they differ
- clairvoyant
- Clairvoyant specifically means seeing things beyond normal sight, such as the future, while psychic is a broader term for supposed extrasensory ability.
- medium
- A medium claims to talk with the dead, while a psychic may claim to read minds or the future.
- fortune-teller
- Fortune-teller suggests a performer who predicts the future, often at a fair, while psychic sounds more modern and general.
- mental
- Mental is the ordinary word for the mind, while psychic in this sense sounds technical or literary.
Opposites
Word family
- psyche noun
- the human mind or soul
- psychically adverb
- by means of or relating to the mind or supposed paranormal powers
- psychology noun
- the study of the mind and behavior
- psychological adjective
- relating to the mind
Commonly confused: psychic or psychological?
psychic vs psychological
Psychological means relating to the mind in the scientific sense, such as psychological research. Psychic usually suggests paranormal powers or is more literary.
Practice
My friend finishes my sentences so often that I joke she must be ___.
Choose one answer.
Psychic here means seeming to read minds, which suits a joke about finishing sentences. Psychotic describes a serious illness, and psychological and physical do not carry the mind-reading meaning.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “psychic”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.