Where did the word psychology and who or what was the word named after?

-- Angie Gardner (angamca@aol.com), August 26, 2001

Answers

"psyche" is a Greek term the meaning of which was only loosely associated with the modern term "mind". The -ology also comes from a Greek term, "logos" meaning an account of something (often rendered as "word").

-- Christopher Green (christo@yorku.ca), September 04, 2001.

Hi Angie, you will want to take a trip to your local library and ask the reference librarian if he/she will direct you to the Oxford English Dictionary. Take a magnifying glass with you. That dictionary approaches definitions exactly from the point of view which you want to take. Also, ask to see a dedicated psycholgy dictionary. Try breaking the word down into psyche and ology in your home dictionary. Best, David

-- david clark (doclark@yorku.ca), August 30, 2001.

You can find the history of the word psychology in the following sources: Lapointe traces in to <1524 in the work of Marco Marulic.

Lapointe, F. H. (1970). Origin and evolution of the term ‘psychology.’ American Psychologist, 25, 640-646.

Lapointe, F. H. (1972a). The origin and evolution of the term "psychology." Psychologia: An International Journal of Psychology in the Orient, 16, 1-16.

Lapointe, F. H. (1972b). Who originated the term ‘psychology’? Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 8, 328-335.

Boring, E. G. (1966). A note on the origin of the word psychology. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 2, 167.

Vande Kemp, H. (1980). Origin and evolution of the term psychology: addenda. American Psychologist, 35, 774.

Vande Kemp, H. (1983). A note on the term psychology in English titles: Predecessors of Rauch. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 19, 185.

-- Hendrika Vande Kemp (hendrika@earthlink.net), September 24, 2001.