What does "psychopathology" mean?

The study of the origin, development, diagnosis and treatment of mental and behavioural disorders.

How do you pronounce "psychopathology"?

Pronounced //ˌsaɪ̯kɒpəˈθɒlədʒɪ//.

Common synonyms include: abnormal psychology, abnormal psychology, parapsychology, psychiatry, psychiatry, psychological medicine.

//ˌsaɪ̯kɒpəˈθɒlədʒɪ// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Noun

1
The study of the origin, development, diagnosis and treatment of mental and behavioural disorders. countable, uncountable
2
the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders wordnet
3
A mental or behavioral disorder. countable
"Our fear and loathing for parasites is obviously adaptive. But this fear can itself mutate into a psychopathology."
4
the branch of psychology concerned with abnormal behavior wordnet

"The MMPI-A is designed to measure characteristics of personality and psychopathology among adolescents."

From psycho- + pathology.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.