▪ I. psyche
(ˈpsaɪkiː, ˈsaɪkiː)
[a. Gr. ψῡχή (in L. psȳchē) breath, f. ψύχειν to breathe, to blow, (later) to cool; hence, life (identified with or indicated by the breath); the animating principle in man and other living beings, the source of all vital activities, rational or irrational, the soul or spirit, in distinction from its material vehicle, the σῶµα or body; sometimes considered as capable of persisting in a disembodied state after separation from the body at death.
In Mythology, personified as in 1 c. By Plato and other philosophers extended to the anima mundi, conceived to animate the general system of the universe, as the soul animates the individual organism. By St. Paul (developing a current Jewish distinction between ruaχ, πνεῦµα, spirit or breath, and nephesh, ψυχή, soul) used for the lower or merely natural life of man, shared with other animals, in contrast with the πνεῦµα or spirit, conceived as a higher element due to divine influence supervening upon the original constitution of unregenerate human nature: see psychic a. 2, psychical 2. (For this and other developments in pre-Christian Judaism, and the N.T. writings, see R. H. Charles, Hist. of the Doctrine of a Future Life, 1899.)]
1. The soul, or spirit, as distinguished from the body; the mind.
| 1658 Sir T. Browne Hydriot. iv. 61 Why the Psyche or soul of Tiresias is of the masculine gender. 1794 Sullivan View Nat. II. 279 The two essentials in the composition of all sublunary things were, by the ancient Greeks, termed psyche and hyle, that is, spiritus et materia, soul and body. 1877 tr. Virchow in Tyndall Fragm. Sc. (1879) II. xv. 407 If I explain attraction and repulsion as exhibitions of mind, as psychical phenomena, I simply throw the Psyche out of the window, and the Psyche ceases to be a Psyche. 1879 Lewes Study Psychol. 73 The most accredited [ancient] thinkers not only detached Man from Nature, but the Mind from the Organism; they invented a Psyche as the source of all mental phenomena. 1888 New Princeton Rev. Mar. 272 Psychology is the science of the psyche or soul. 1896 P. Gardner Sculptured Tombs Hellas 24 The psyche, to Homer, is not in the least like the Christian Soul, but is a shadowy double of the man, wanting alike in force and wisdom. 1905 E. J. Dillon in Contemp. Rev. Aug. 287 It is difficult to realise the position and to picture the psyche of Rozhdestvensky [the Russian admiral who fired on the North Sea fishing fleet]. |
† b. The animating principle of the universe as a whole, the soul of the world or anima mundi.
| 1647 H. More Song of Soul Notes 138/2 Such is the entrance of Psyche into the body of the Vniverse, kindling and exciting the dead mist. 1678 Cudworth Intell. Syst. i. iv. §21. 388 This is taken by Plotinus to be the Eternal Psyche, that actively produceth All Things, in this Lower World, according to those Divine Ideas. Ibid. §23. 406 But in other places..he frequently asserts, above the Self⁓moving Psyche an Immovable and Standing Nous or Intellect, which was properly the Demiurgus. |
c. In later Greek Mythol., personified as the beloved of Eros (Cupid or Love), and represented in works of art as having butterfly wings, or as a butterfly; known in literature as the heroine of the story related in the Golden Ass of Apuleius. Hence attrib. in sense ‘like that of Psyche’, as in Psyche-knot (of hair), Psyche-mould, Psyche task.
| 1876 Geo. Eliot Dan. Der. lxi, In the Psyche-mould of Mirah's frame there rested a fervid quality of emotion sometimes rashly supposed to require the bulk of a Cleopatra. 1888 A. R. Diehl Two Thousand Words 170 Psyche knot, the style of wearing the hair in a projecting coil in the middle of the back of the head. 1895 S. B. Kennedy in Outing (U.S.) Oct. 8/2 Do you think this Psyche knot suits the special cut of my features? 1901 Westm. Gaz. 28 May 2/4 After many Psyche tasks Fate-encumbered now unravelled, Hoping there's no more to do. 1904 Ibid. 30 Nov. 4/2, I am not quite sure I know what is ‘a Psyche knot’, which was what the lady's jet-black hair was transformed to. 1968 J. Updike Couples v. 404 Her hair was pinned up in a psyche knot. |
d. Psychol. The conscious and unconscious mind and emotions, esp. as influencing and affecting the whole person. Also Comb.
| 1910 C. G. Jung in Amer. Jrnl. Psychol. XXI. 226 Disease is an imperfect adaptation; hence in this case we are dealing with something morbid in the psyche. Ibid. 254 This explains a part of the conflict in the child's psyche. 1940 H. G. Baynes Mythol. of Soul v. 154 Split off from the psychic hierarchy as an infantile idée fixe, it resisted the decisive transition from the infantile to the cultural psyche. 1949 J. Strachey tr. Freud's Outl. Psycho-Anal. i. 1 We know two things concerning what we call our psyche or mental life: firstly, its bodily organ and scene of action, the brain (or nervous system), and secondly, our acts of consciousness. 1958 Times Lit. Suppl. 23 May p. xii/2 The transformation and re-birth of the psyche in the individual's development towards maturity and integration. 1959 Ibid. 23 Jan. 44/5 If the stability of the self is threatened by too much division the psyche asserts itself by projecting an image of wholeness upon the sphere of consciousness. 1961 Times 4 Sept. 5/7 This democratic and psyche-conscious age. 1976 Jrnl. Analytical Psychol. XXI. 193 A heart ailment..need not arise from the heart only; it can also arise from the psyche of the sufferer. |
2. a. (After Gr.) A butterfly.
| 1820 M. Edgeworth Let. 19 Aug. (1979) 224 You know the prints of the Berne Costume. Pray look at the butterfly wing caps—Brobdignag butterflies... This picturesque Psyche costume. 1878 Emerson Sov. Ethics Wks. (Bohn) I. 373 The poor grub..expands into a beautiful form with rainbow wings... The Greeks called it Psyche, a manifest emblem of the soul. 1896 Cosmopolitan XX. 396/1 Lovelier than any psyche of the sun floating with moons of velvet jet on wings of heaven's blue. |
b. Entom. A genus of day-flying bombycid moths, typical of the family Psychidæ.
| 1832 Rennie Conspect. Butterfl. & Moths 44 Psyche (Schrank [1801]). The Brown Muslin (Psyche fusca)..; pale greyish-brown, without spots;..the female without wings. 1857 H. T. Stainton Man. Brit. Butterfl. & Moths 165 Family xi. Psychidæ... The female of Psyche, not only without wings, but deprived of legs or antennæ... The males fly by day in search of the females. |
3. Astron. Name of one of the asteroids.
| 1883 Chambers' Encycl. s.v. Planetoids, No. 16. Psyche, [discovered] 1852, Mar. 17 [by] De Gasparis. |
4. A cheval-glass; also psyche-glass.
[Mod.F. In Dict. Acad. 1835. Said to be so called from Raphael's full-length painting of the fabled Psyche.]
| 1838 Lytton Alice i. v, ‘How low the room is..!’ said Caroline;..‘And I see no Psyche’. 1887 Athenæum 18 June 803/3 A girl combing her fair hair before a psyche. |
Hence Psyˈchean a. rare, of or pertaining to Psyche; ˈpsycheism (see quot. 1895).
| 1828 Lights & Shades II. 186 You might have sprained it [your ankle] with more grace in a Psychean quadrille. 1849 J. W. Haddock (title) Somnolism and Psycheism, otherwise Vital Magnetism, or Mesmerism: considered Physiologically and Philosophically. 1895 Syd. Soc. Lex., Psycheism, the somnolent condition induced by mesmerism; now most commonly termed the hypnotic state. |
▪ II. psyche
var. psych.