Sociopath

Use this forum to discuss past Good Words.
User avatar
Dr. Goodword
Site Admin
Posts: 7417
Joined: Wed Feb 02, 2005 9:28 am
Location: Lewisburg, PA
Contact:

Sociopath

Postby Dr. Goodword » Wed Feb 22, 2023 9:54 pm

• sociopath •


Pronunciation: so-si-ê-pæth, so-shi-ê-pæth • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: A person with antisocial personality disorder, prone to fits of anger who cannot form emotional or social relationships, lacking a sense of moral or social conscience.

Notes: While some psychologists try to distinguish today's word from psychopath, most dictionaries treat them as synonyms. Apparently, sociopath replaced psychopath in the early 20th century as psycho arose and took on a derogatory sense. The adjective for this word is sociopathic and the condition itself is known as sociopathy.

In Play: This word has serious implications: "While Stalin seldom attended executions or torture sessions, he was a sociopath who would guffaw loudly when he heard of the victims' last desperate pleas for mercy." Yet it is flexible enough for play: "May Hemme quickly took offense and exclaimed, "How insulting! I'm no psycho; my shrink says I'm a sociopath!"

Word History: Today's Good Word is a compound consisting of socio-, the combining form of society + -path, the root of Greek pathos "suffering". Society came to English from French société, passed down from Latin societas "fellowship, community, society". Latin created its word from PIE sekw-/sokw- "to follow, accompany", which we also see in sequor "to follow", Sanskrit sacate "follows, accompanies", Albanian shoqu "friend" and shkoj "to go", Lithuanian sekti "to follow" and Latvian sekt "to follow". Greek pathos seems to go back to denasalized PIE kwenth- "to suffer, endure", because Greek also shows the word penthos "affliction, grief". How the KW became P is too complicated for here. We find this PIE word underlying Lithuanian kęsti "to suffer, withstand" and Latvian ciest "suffer, endure". (Now a belated note of gratitude to Pauline Rodwell who, in a discussion of psychopath in 2012, recommended today's unfortunately timely Good Word in the wrong Agora booth.)
• The Good Dr. Goodword

User avatar
Slava
Great Grand Panjandrum
Posts: 8040
Joined: Thu Sep 28, 2006 9:31 am
Location: Finger Lakes, NY

Re: Sociopath

Postby Slava » Thu Feb 22, 2024 7:08 am

Judging from the above, it appears that the two paths, psycho and socio, are officially the same. It's just that psychopath is no longer used, being supplanted by the sociopath because psycho is derogatory. Odd, I don't see being a sociopath as being a particularly great label, either.

"[L]acking a sense of moral or social conscience" - this seems to be a requirement for leadership these days. At least at a country or international level.
Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.


Return to “Good Word Discussion”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Ahrefs [Bot] and 46 guests