psychopathn.

1864 Amer. Jrnl. Med. Sci. 95 425 Psychopaths would object to an implication..that mental derangement may occur independently of cerebral textural change.

1874 C. M. Davies Heterodox London I. 199 Public opinion does not share the prejudices or the selfish exclusiveness of the medical profession; but we must not forget that the faculty is equally opposed to homœopaths, hydropaths, mesmerists, psychopaths, and every description of heterodox masculine practitioners.

1884 Hahnemannian Monthly Aug. 492 From the ætiological standpoint of the psychopaths, fortunately abandoned now, one would have concluded that, in this case, the melancholia, as a disorder of the mind, had developed from the previous mental depression.

1885 Pall Mall Gaz. 21 Jan. 3/2 For the benefit of those who are as yet ignorant of the meaning of psychopathy..we give M. Balinsky's [sc. a Russian psychiatrist] explanation of the new malady. ‘The psychopath..is a type which has only recently come under the notice of medical science... Beside his own person and his own interests, nothing is sacred to the psychopath.’

1902 W. James Varieties Relig. Experience 7 From the point of view of his nervous constitution, Fox was a psychopath or détraqué of the deepest dye.

1927 New Republic 21 Sept. 128/2 Terms not so long ago confined to specialists are handled familiarly by the laity: moron, inferiority complex, mental age,..paranoid delusions, psychopaths.

1955 D. J. West Homosexuality ix. 106 Psychopaths are the last people to try to battle against their instincts; they just obey first impulses regardless of social codes. Being incapable of prolonged or deep personal attachments, they seek only an immediate outlet for their lust.

1967 Listener 20 Apr. 529/3 The term psychopath is bandied about in such a way as to make it cover almost any mental disorder... However the psychopath has now achieved legal status in the Mental Health Act of 1959 as having ‘a persistent disorder or disability of mind..which results in abnormally aggressive or seriously irresponsible behaviour’.

1983 D. Stafford-Clark & A. C. Smith Psychiatry for Students (ed. 6) xi. 162 The psychopath can be regarded as falling between the insane and the criminal.

1993 Time Out 31 Mar. 109/1 When Macbeth allies himself with hit-men to kill Banquo, he has deteriorated into a frenzied psychopath, which deprives the role of its nobility and tragic stature.