psychological
adjective
Simple meaning
About the mind and behavior or to the mental, emotional, and behavioral characteristics about a specified person, group.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
sykuhlahjihkuhlSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
saɪkəˈlɑdʒɪkəl
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.
adjective
Relating to the mind and behavior or to the mental, emotional, and behavioral characteristics pertaining to a specified person, group, or activity.
Of or relating to or determined by psychology
Of or pertaining to psychology.
Without an objective, or reasonably logical foundation.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Relating to the mind and behavior or to the mental, emotional, and behavioral characteristics pertaining to a specified person, group, or activity.
In this sense, psychological is a very strong, expressive word and usually reads as a strong judgement about someone's behaviour or state of mind. In casual exaggeration — a fitness maniac, driving like a maniac — it can sound playful or admiring, but it still carries far more force than simply saying someone is keen.
- Emotional tone
- Context-dependent
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Very strong
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Critical or judgemental
- Usage feel
- Everyday but emotionally strong
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use psychological
- “Psychological theories.”adjective
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
The science of mental life.
A scientist trained in psychology.
A person apparently sensitive to things beyond the natural range of perception.
With regard to psychology.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The science of mental life.
A psychological disorder of thought or emotion.
A feature of the mental life of a living organism.
The branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders.
The most appropriate time for achieving a desired effect.
Military actions designed to influence the perceptions and attitudes of individuals, groups, and foreign governments.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
The branch of psychiatry concerned with psychological methods.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- behavioraladjective
- tortureverb
- psychologynoun
- emotionaladjective
- anxietynoun
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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.