'Psychopath' was a broad term for mental illness in the 1880s — it narrowed to antisocial personality later.
A person suffering from a chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behaviour; a person with a personality disorder manifesting in extreme antisocial attitudes and lack of conscience.
Coined in the 1880s in German psychiatric literature as 'Psychopath,' from Greek 'psyche' (soul, mind, the animating spirit) + 'pathos' (suffering, disease, passion, that which befalls one). The Greek 'psyche' derives from 'psychein' (to breathe, to blow cool), connected to the root underlying 'psychros' (cold), the breath being the most visible token of life departing. The same root produced 'psychology' (study of the mind), 'psychiatry' (medical treatment of the mind), 'psychedelic' (soul-manifesting
The distinction between 'psychopath' and 'sociopath' is not clearly defined in clinical psychiatry — neither term appears as a diagnosis in the DSM-5, which instead uses 'antisocial personality disorder.' In popular usage, 'psychopath' implies cold, calculated behavior and a biological predisposition, while 'sociopath' implies more impulsive behavior shaped by environment. This distinction, though widely repeated, was largely created