psychs
Meaning
Psychs is usually the third-person form of the informal verb psych (to pump someone up or mess with their head), and people also search it for the joking shout “Psych!” and related slang.
Meanings of “psychs”
Third-person singular present of psych: to prepare mentally, excite, or intimidate someone (often with up or out).1234
- Tone
- Informal; spoken and casual writing.
- Where you’ll see it
- When someone asks what does psychs mean in a sentence like “she psychs herself up,” Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster, and the American Heritage Dictionary treat it as the conjugated verb: psych up for confidence or excitement, psych out to unsettle an opponent. Wiktionary lists the same third-person form psychs under the informal verb.
Examples
- She psychs herself up in the mirror before every audition.
- He psychs out rivals with trash talk before tip-off.
- That playlist always psychs the team up for kickoff.
Examples are written for this site to show typical use. They are not quotes.
Related slang: Psych! (also spelled sike/syke) means “just kidding” after a fake-out; psyched means excitedly ready or thrilled.124
- Tone
- Informal or slang; interjection is playful.
- Where you’ll see it
- Dictionary.com lists Psych! as an interjection used after deliberately misleading someone. Merriam-Webster defines the interjection psych (or sike) the same way and dates that sense. Psyched as “excited / pumped” is the past participle used as an adjective in everyday speech (Dictionary.com’s “make happily excited” sense feeds this reading).
Examples
- I sold the car—Psych! The agent is not coming.
- Are you psyched for the concert tonight?
- Sike—that was never the real password.
Informal plural of psych as a clipped noun for a psychiatrist or psychologist.41
- Tone
- Informal; workplace or campus shorthand.
- Where you’ll see it
- Wiktionary records psych (plural psychs) as informal clippings of psychiatrist and psychologist. Dictionary.com also lists psych as informal for psychology as a field of study; that noun sense is related but not the same as the clinician plural.
Examples
- The ward psychs reviewed the case notes that morning.
- She fooled the top psychs of the board, according to an old fiction quote Dictionary.com reprints.
Usage notes
- Searches for psychs meaning or what does psychs mean usually want the verb conjugation or the Psych! fake-out, not the combining form psych-.
- Psych out = unsettle; psych up = get ready or excited. Context decides which particle fits.
- Do not confuse the slang interjection with clinical psychology jargon; the clinician plural is informal shorthand, not a formal title.
Origin
Psych as a verb is a shortening recorded in the early 20th century (Dictionary.com: originally from psychoanalyze; later senses may be independent uses of psych-). Merriam-Webster dates the verb to 1917 and the joking interjection to 1983. The spelling variants sike and syke appear with the interjection in Merriam-Webster and Wiktionary.124
Sources
- psych — Dictionary.com (opens in a new tab)
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/psych
- psych — Merriam-Webster (opens in a new tab)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/psych
- psych — American Heritage Dictionary (opens in a new tab)
https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=psych
- psych — Wiktionary (opens in a new tab)
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/psych