Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Psyche |
PsycheNoun1. That which is responsible for one's thoughts and feelings; the seat of the faculty of reason; "his mind wandered"; "I couldn't get his words out of my head". 2. The immaterial part of a person; the actuating cause of an individual life. 3. (Greek mythology) a beautiful princess loved by Cupid who visited her at night and told her she must not try to see him; became the personification of the soul. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
"Psyche" is a name that signifies or is derived from: "soul", "breathe". |
Date "psyche" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1596. (references) |
Etymology: Psyche \Psy"che\, noun. [Latin expression, from the Greek expression PSychh` Psyche, from psychh` the soul.]. (Websters 1913) |
| Domain | Definition |
Literature | Psyche [Syke]. A beautiful maiden beloved by Cupid, who visited her every night, but left her at sunrise. Cupid bade her never seek to know who he was, but one night curiosity overcame her prudence, and she went to look at him. A drop of hot oil fell on his shoulder, awoke him, and he fled. Psyche next became the slave of Venus, who treated her most cruelly; but ultimately she was married to Cupid, and became immortal, Mrs. Henry Tighe has embodied in six cantos this exquisite allegory from Apuléios. This subject was represented by Raphael in a suite of thirty-two pictures, and numerous artists have taken the loves of Cupid and Psyche for their subject; as, for example, Canova, Gerard. Chaudet, etc. The cameo of the Duke of Marlborough is said to have been the work of Tryphon of Athens. Raphael's illustrations of the adventures of Psyche were engraved for a superb edition in 4 to (De la Fable de Psyche), published by Henri Didot. "Fair Psyche, kneeling at the ethereal throne, Warmed the fond bosom of unconquered love." Darwin: Economy of Vegetation, iv. Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Eros' mother, Aphrodite, was jealous of the beauty of Psyche. She asked Eros to use his golden arrows to cause Psyche to fall in love with the ugliest man on earth. Eros agreed but then fell in love with Psyche on his own, or by accidentally pricking himself with a golden arrow. Meanwhile, Psyche's parents were anxious that their daughter remained unmarried. They consulted an oracle who told them she was destined for no mortal lover, but a monster who lived on top of a particular mountain. Psyche was resigned to her fate and climbed to the top of the mountain. There, Zephyrus, the west wind, gently floated her downwards. She entered a cave on the appointed mountain, surprised to find it full of jewelry and finery. Eros visited her every night in the cave and they made love; he demanded only that she never light any lamps because he did not want her to know who he was (having wings made him distinctive). Her two sisters, jealous of Psyche, convinced her to do so one night and she lit a lamp, recognizing him instantly. A drop of hot lamp oil fell on Eros' chest and he awoke, then fled.
When Psyche told her two, jealous, elder sisters what had happened; they rejoiced secretly and each separately walked to the top of the mountain and did as Psyche described her entry to the cave, hoping Eros would pick them instead. Zephyrus did not pick them and they fell to their deaths at the base of the mountain.
Psyche searched for her lover across much of Greece, finally stumbling into a temple to Demeter, where the floor was covered with piles of mixed grains. She started sorting the grains into organized piles and, when she finished, Demeter spoke to her, telling her that the best way to find Eros was to find his mother, Aphrodite, and earn her blessing. Psyche found a temple to Aphrodite and entered it. Aphrodite assigned her a similar task to Demeter's temple, but gave her an impossible deadline to finish it by. Eros intervened, for he still loved her, and caused some ants to organize the grains for her. Aphrodite was outraged at her success and told her to go to a field where golden sheep grazed and get some golden wool. Psyche went to the field and saw the sheep but was stopped by a river-god, whose river she had to cross to enter the field. He told her the sheep were mean and vicious and would kill her, but if she waited until noontime, the sheep would go the shade on the other side of the field and sleep; she could pick the wool that stuck to the branches and bark of the trees. Psyche did so and Aphrodite was even more outraged at her survival and success. Finally, Aphrodite claimed that the stress of caring for her son, depressed and ill as a result of Psyche's unfaithfulness, had caused her to lose some of her beauty. Psyche was to go to Hades and ask Persephone, the queen of the underworld, for a bit of her beauty in a black box that Aphrodite gave to Psyche. Psyche walked to a tower, deciding that the quickest way to the underworld would be to die. A voice stopped her at the last moment and told her a route that would allow her to enter and return still living, as well as telling her how to pass Cerberus, Charon and the other dangers of the route. She pacified Cerberus, the three-headed dog, with a sweet honey-cake and paid Charon an obolus to take her into Hades. Once there, Persephone offered her a feast but Psyche refused, knowing it would keep her in the underworld forever.
Psyche left the underworld and decided to open the box and take a little bit of the beauty for herself. Inside was a "Stygian sleep" which overtook her. Eros, who had forgiven her, flew to her body and healed her, then begged Zeus and Aphrodite for their consent to his wedding of Psyche. They agreed and Zeus made her immortal.
Psyche's visit and return to the underworld made her an object of some devotion, like Dionysus and Persephone. She was an object of some mystery religions and was occasionally mentioned in connection with the popular Eleusinian mysteries.
Psyche was usually portrayed as a beautiful woman with the wings of a butterfly.
At the conclusion of Comus, the poet John Milton alluded to the story of Eros and Psyche. (Cupid is the Roman version of Eros)
"Celestial Cupid, her famed son, advanced, Holds his dear Psyche sweet entranced, After her wandering labours long, Till free consent the gods among Make her his eternal bride; And from her fair unspotted side Two blissful twins are to be born, Youth and Joy; so Jove hath sworn."The poet T.K. Harvey wrote:
"They wove bright fables in the days of old, When reason borrowed fancy's painted wings; When truth's clear river flowed o'er sands of gold, And told in song its high and mystic things! And such the sweet and solemn tale of her The pilgrim heart, to whom a dream was given, That led her through the world,- Love's worshipper,- To seek on earth for him whose home was heaven! "In the full city,- by the haunted fount,- Through the dim grotto's tracery of spars,- 'Mid the pine temples, on the moonlit mount, Where silence sits to listen to the stars; In the deep glade where dwells the brooding dove, The painted valley, and the scented air, She heard far echoes of the voice of Love, And found his footsteps' traces everywhere. "But nevermore they met! since doubts and fears, Those phantom shapes that haunt and blight the earth, Had come 'twixt her, a child of sin and tears, And that bright spirit of immortal birth; Until her pining soul and weeping eyes Had learned to seek him only in the skies; Till wings unto the weary heart were given, And she became Love's angel bride in heaven!"The British scholar and novelist C.S. Lewis also wrote a prose version of the story of Eros and Psyche, Till We Have Faces.
See for other meanings of Psyche: 16 Psyche (asteroid), Psyche (band), Psyche (Lepidoptera).
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Psyche is the name of a Canadian (now German) Gothic band, centered on Darrin Huss.Best known songs are "Misery", "Unveiling the Secret" and a remake of "Goodby Horses".
See The Psyche Home Page See Gothic rock
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Psyche."
Synonyms: PsycheSynonyms: brain (n), head (n), mind (n), nous (n), soul (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Intellect | Soul, spirit, ghost, inner man, heart, breast, bosom, penetralia mentis, divina particula aurae, heart's core; the Absolute, psyche, subliminal consciousness, supreme principle. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Psyche |
| English words defined with "psyche": introjected ♦ Psychian. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "psyche": Pururavas and Urvasi ♦ therapeutic community. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Psyche" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses. Dutch (psyche), German (psyche, psychology). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Movie/TV Titles | Psyche '59 (1964) Amor og Psyche (1953) A Modern Psyche (1913) Cupid and Psyche (1897) Amor und Psyche (1990) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
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Periodicals |
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Theater & Movies | |||
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | In port during World War I. Built in 1911 as a pleasure craft, and formerly named Achelous, she was acquired by the Navy on 2 May 1917 and commissioned on 15 June 1917. Her assigned armament was one 1-pounder gun. Psyche V was transferred to the Department of Commerce on 16 June 1919. Credit: NAVY. |  | The story of Cupid and Psyche: Psyche spying on Cupid. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Cupid and Psyche. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Psyche. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Cupid & Psyche. Credit: Library of Congress. | ||
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Title | Author | Quote |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | This chaste restraint is the shade which separates Psyche from Venus. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Travel | Ukraine | The legacy of centralized authority extending back for centuries, bureaucracy, red tape, and an unwillingness to take initiative have been imprinted on the developing Ukrainian business psyche. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| Speaker | Phrase(s) |
Christopher Reeve | It's funny how the psyche and the body shut down when you're in real crisis. Mine shut downs at odd moments anyway. |
Dennis Miller | Fast food is not only delicious to the taste, but also very soothing to the psyche. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| "Psyche" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 98.27% of the time. "Psyche" is used about 231 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 98.27% | 227 | 19,961 |
| Noun (proper) | 1.73% | 4 | 175,879 |
| Total | 100.00% | 231 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "psyche": psyche out ♦ psyche up. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "psyche": psyche-regenerative. | |
Ending with "psyche": body-and-psyche. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "psyche"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | psikikë, shpirt (animus, genius, heart, mind, soul, spirit), frymë (breath, head, none, puff, spirit, wind). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | مراة متحركة, نفس روح (mind, respiration, soul, spirit), عقل (brains, intellect, intelligence, layer, mentality, mind, pate, picket, reason, sense, skull, steady, wit), أميرة فاتنة الجمال, روح (circulate, fan, ghost, life, pneuma, shade, soul, spirit). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | сплашвам (browbeat, bulldoze, cow, daunt, intimidate), отгатвам (guess, hit, nose, riddle, tell), психика, подготвям се психологически, подлагам на психоанализа (psychoanalize, psychoanalyze), душа (breast, ghost, heart, inside, lifeblood, mastermind, nature, nose, nuzzle, quest, scent, scrag, smell, smell about, smother, sniff, soul, spirit, stifle, throttle). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Czech | duch (apparition, esprit, ghost, gimp, mind, soul, spectre, spirit, spook), duše (bladder, soul, spirit). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dutch | Psyche. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Esperanto | psiko, Psiĥo. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Faeroese | sál (mind, soul). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Farsi | روان (Cursive, Easy, Fluent, Ghost, Glib, Handy, Liquid, Smooth, Spirit, Versatile, Voluble), روح (Esprit, Ghost, Numen, Phantom, Specter, Spirit, Spook, Sprite, Umber, Umbra, Wraith, Zinc, Zing). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | psyyke (soul mind). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | psychisme (psychical habitus), psyché. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | Psyche (psychology). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | ψυχοσύνθεση (frame of mind, mentality). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hebrew | שמ" (life, mind, soul, spirit), פש (breath, life, mind, person, respiration, soul, spirit). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | psziché, lélek (breast, censorship, conscience, critter, ghost, metal, mind, soul, spirit). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Indonesian | jiwa (esprit, soul). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | psiche. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | 気 い立つ (to psyche oneself up, to rouse oneself), 気'引き める (to psyche up). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | きおいたつ (to psyche oneself up, to rouse oneself). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | spyrryd (common tern, esprit, ghost, morale, spirit). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | ychepsay psique, espírito (esprit, genie, ghost, go, jinnee, mind, nous, poltergeist, python, soul, spirit, sprite, tone, wit), espécie de toucador, alma (bosom, essence, ghost, mind, soul, spirit). (various references) психея, психика (mind, phyche), душа (anima, breast, ghost, heart, soul). (various references) psiha, duša (darling, soul, spirit). (various references) psique. (various references) själ (mind, mortal, soul, spirit), psyke. (various references) ruh (astral body, aura, esprit, essence, essential oil, genius, ghost, heartbeat, inner man, manes, pith, pith and marrow, shade, smelling salts, soul, spirit), akıl (advice, bean, brain, chump, comprehension, consciousness, gray matter, grey matter, head, headpiece, intellect, intelligence, loaf, memory, mental, mind, nous, prudence, reason, sapience, senses, strength of mind, wisdom, wit). (various references) псіше, психея, дух (esprit, genie, mind, soul, spirit), душа (bosom, ghost, heart, mind, soul). (various references) tinh thần (uplift), linh h"n. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Greek | 700 BCE-300 CE | psykhe. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "psyche": psyched, psychedelia, psychedelias, psychedelic, psychedelically, psychedelics, psyches. (additional references) | |
Words containing "psyche": prepsychedelic. (additional references) | |
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"Psyche" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: aptychi, dshcher, Pessach, phsyche, phsycho, phyche, Prysche, psche, pshyce, pshyche, pshycho, psychh, psychi, psychia, psychie, psychil, psychy, psyke, psykter, psyscho, pysche, pysched, pyscho, spiche, syche. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "psyche" (pronounced sī"kē) |
| 3 | -ī" k ē | spiky. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "c-e-h-p-s-y" | |
-1 letter: hypes, pechs, psych, yechs. | |
-2 letters: ceps, espy, hype, hyps, pech, pecs, pehs, pyes, spec, syce, syph, yech. | |
-3 letters: cep, hep, hes, hey, hyp, pec, peh, pes, pye, sec, she, shy, spy, yeh, yep, yes. | |
-4 letters: eh, es, he, pe, sh, ye. | |
| Words containing the letters "c-e-h-p-s-y" | |
+1 letter: cyphers, psyched, psyches. | |
+2 letters: scyphate. | |
+3 letters: coryphees, hypothecs, paychecks, physicked, psychoses, speechify. | |
+4 letters: archetypes, cheapishly, coryphaeus, cymophanes, emphysemic, geophysics, hydrospace, hypercubes, hypersonic, hyperspace, hypocrites, keypunches, mesophytic, metaphysic, mycophiles, pachyderms, pachytenes, phagocytes, phenocryst, sphericity. | |
+5 letters: bathyscaphe, chrysophyte, chrysoprase, copyholders, geophysical, hepatocytes, hydrospaces, hypermnesic, hyperspaces, hyperstatic, hypocenters, hypocrisies, hypodermics, hypsometric, keypunchers, lymphocytes, macrophytes, mesophyllic, metaphysics, mycophagies, parenchymas, phagocytose, phenocrysts, phycologies, polychaetes, polychromes, psychedelia, psychedelic, psychogenic, psychometry, scenography, spherically, sympathetic, viceroyship. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Quotations: Fiction | 9. Quotations: Non-fiction 10. Quotations: Spoken 11. Usage Frequency 12. Expressions | 13. Expressions: Internet 14. Translations: Modern 15. Translations: Ancient 16. Derivations | 17. Rhymes 18. Anagrams 19. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
