psychiatry
noun
Simple meaning
The branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
sykyuhtreeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
saɪˈkaɪətɹi
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
medicine
The branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders
medicine
The branch of medicine that focuses on mental and behavioral health by subjectively diagnosing, treating, or preventing mental disorders (mental illnesses) and behavioural conditions.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: The branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders
Used this way, psychiatry is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a clinical use: it belongs to medical description, where it is factual rather than emotive.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Medicine/healthcare
- Science
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Nearby words
- psychopathology , a specialist term, precise but narrower
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use psychiatry
- “She decided to study psychiatry to help people with mental health.”
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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.