Psychological means to do with the mind and how it works. A psychological effect, psychological support, psychologically damaging.
It marks a cause or an effect as mental rather than physical, and it is the word insurers, courts and doctors use to say the harm was real without being visible. A psychological thriller works on fear and doubt instead of on violence.
1adjectivepsychologicalTo do with the mind and how it works.
“Losing his job had a serious psychological effect on him, and he stopped going out.”
psychological is a quality.
Ancient Greek
ψυχή — soul
la-ren
psychologia
French
psychologie
English
psychology
English, today
psychological
Built from
From psychology + -ical. psychology comes from French psychologie, from la-ren psychologia, from Ancient Greek ψυχή (“soul”) + -λογία (“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 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.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA