Psych
adj, intj, noun, verb, slang ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 Psychology or psychiatry. informal, uncountable
"I took psych my freshman year in university."
- 2 A psychologist; a psychiatrist. countable, informal
"She had attended a conference of psychs at which he had presided and they had taken a fancy to each other."
- 3 A psychiatric hospital; psychiatric treatment. countable, informal, uncountable
"A fool who had never seen reality would think an old lady is harmless or weak. Perhaps the morons in the outside world believe an old lady locked-up in psych is akin to a sweet little grandmother, a poor old dear who is just a little confused."
- 1 To put (someone) into a required psychological frame of mind (also psych up). informal, reflexive, transitive
"Hip hop always gets me psyched, so I put it on before a race."
- 2 To intimidate (someone) emotionally or using psychology (also psych out). informal, transitive
- 3 To treat (someone) using psychoanalysis. informal, transitive
- 1 Psychedelic. informal
"curtains with psych colors"
- 2 Psychiatric. informal
"involuntarily committed to the psych ward"
- 1 Indicating that one's preceding statement was false and that one has successfully fooled one's interlocutor. dated, informal, slang
"Here, have fifty dollars. Psych! That was two dollars!"
- 2 An interjection of surprised happiness. dated, informal, slang
"Psych! I just found my missing bracelet!"
Example
More examples"Are you going to psych yourself up before the match?"
Etymology
Clipping.
Related phrases
More for "psych"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.