psychology

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   The study of the human mind.

   Idleness is the beginning of all psychology .

2. 2
   noun

   The study of the soul.

   Alcinous in Didascalius chapter 23 uses the three physical locations of the human soul from Timaeus 69c–72c […] to lead into a dedicated discussion of psychology.

3. 3
   noun

   The mental, emotional, and behavioral characteristics pertaining to a specified person, group, or activity.

   For generations, historians have conjectured everything from a warped psychology to a deformed body as accounting for Elizabeth's preferred spinsterhood...

4. 4
   noun

   the science of mental life

5. 5
   noun

   The study of human or animal behavior.

Etymology

From French psychologie, from Renaissance Latin psychologia, from Ancient Greek ψυχή (psukhḗ, “soul”) + -λογία (-logía, “study of”), equivalent to psycho- + -logy. The Latin term is believed by some to have been coined in a lost treatise by Croatian humanist Marko Marulić (1450–1524), but this is disputed by other scholars. It is first attested in the 1570s, at which time it was apparently already current, and may be a Hellenization of the established expression dē animā (“on the soul”) in titles.