sociopathn.
/ˈsəʊʃ(ɪ)ə(ʊ)paθ/, /ˈsəʊsɪə(ʊ)paθ/, U.S. /ˈsoʊsiəˌpæθ/, /ˈsoʊʃ(i)əˌpæθ/ Originally Psychology and Psychiatry.
Originally: a person who performs criminal or antisocial acts as a result of a moderate degree of mental deficiency (disused). In later use (also hyperbolically): a person affected with sociopathy; a psychopath. Now rare in technical use.
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the world > health and disease > mental health > mental illness > degree or type of mental illness > [noun] > personality disorders > sociopathy or maladjustment > person
sociopath1914
1914 Rec. 17 June in W. J. Hickson Rep. Psychopathic Lab. Munic. Court Chicago (1917) 86 The Boys Court... Records of Arrests... Diagnosis... Low grade sociopath.
1915 Jrnl. Amer. Inst. Criminal Law & Criminol. 6 62 Such diagnosis demands the very highest degree of expertness, especially in the higher grades of feeble-mindedness, such as the sociopaths.
1919 San Antonio (Texas) Evening News 21 July 3/7 She was diagnosed by Dr. Hickson as a high-grade sociopath, which means that she had about the intelligence of an ordinary child of 14.
1930 G. E. Partridge in Amer. Jrnl. Psychiatry 10 56 We may exclude from the class of essential sociopaths those whose inadequacy is primarily related to physical weakness, fear, hypersensitiveness, shyness and self-blame.
1976 J. R. Smythies & L. Corbett Psychiatry Students of Med. iii. 29 Many sociopaths come from appalling backgrounds or from genetically afflicted families.
1990 Arizona Daily Star 14 Mar. c1/1 One finds the police represented as whole people, not sociopaths with side arms.
2001 K. Walker & M. Schone Son of Grifter i. 1 Who can beat a lie detector test? Swamis, maybe, with pulse and breath control, or con artists, or cold-blooded sociopaths.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2009; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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