Word
psychiatric
Phoneticspsy·chi·atric
US/ˌsaɪkiˈætɹɪk/
UK/sˌaɪkɪˈætɹɪk/
Definitions
01relating to mental health
adj. relating to the study or treatment of mental illness.
adj. of or relating to psychiatry; specifically concerning the medical treatment of mental disorders.
“The patient was admitted to the psychiatric ward for further observation.”
“The hospital expanded its psychiatric department to better address the rising demand for acute mental health interventions in the urban area.”
Synonyms
02a person with a disorder
n. an old-fashioned and often impolite way to describe someone with a mental illness.
n. a person diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder. This usage is dated and generally considered dehumanising in modern clinical and social contexts.
“In the old book, the author refers to the character as a psychiatric.”
“Nineteenth-century medical texts often used 'psychiatric' as a noun, a practice that has since been replaced by person-first language.”
Archaic
Usage
Used as a countable noun; now largely replaced by 'psychiatric patient' or 'person with a mental illness'.
Teaching tip
This noun sense is archaic and potentially offensive; students should only use the word as an adjective.
Synonyms
Real-World Examples
“The findings could offer new clues about how early-life stress contributes to psychiatric disorders.” “Researchers screened participants through medical and psychiatric evaluations, physical examinations, routine blood tests, and urine drug testing to confirm they were healthy and had not recently used other illicit drugs.” “He was working as a psychiatric social worker at a nearby hospital and had brought a young outpatient for a walk.” “Beyond simply assuming that “psilocybin helps psychiatric illness generally, [so] why not this one too,” Foldi hypothesized that the drug might target cognitive rigidity across disorders.” Etymology
From psychiatry + -ic or psych- + -iatric.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Collocations
Scan code
englishreference.com/q/psychiatric