Word.ws English Dictionary

psychobabble

Syllables: psy·cho·bab·bleUK/ˈsaɪkəʊbab(ə)l/

psychobabble noun: the jargon of psychology and psychoanalysis, especially when used pretentiously to discuss mundane issues.

Noun

psychobabble (uncountable)

  1. (derogatory) The jargon of psychology and psychoanalysis, especially when used pretentiously to discuss mundane issues.
    • We are living, practically no one has to be reminded, in a therapeutic age. The sign in every storefront reads: "Psychobabble spoken here".May 27, 1975, R.D. Rosen, Boston Phoenix
    • The psychological patter of the '70s is as inescapable as Muzak and just as numbing: Are you relating? Going through heavy changes? In touch with yourself and doing your own thing? Are you up front, or just hung up and uptight? Boston Writer R.D. (for Richard Dean) Rosen calls it psychobabble, and...1977 December 3, “Psychobabble”, in Time

Verb

psychobabble (third-person singular simple present psychobabbles, present participle psychobabbling, simple past and past participle psychobabbled)

  1. (intransitive) To speak or converse using this kind of jargon.

Examples of psychobabble in a sentence

  • Boston Writer R.D. (for Richard Dean) Rosen calls it psychobabble, and in his new book by that title (Atheneum, $8.95) sees America awash in soggy therapeutic clichés.1977 December 3, “Psychobabble”, in Time:
  • He didn't want to hear any new-age psychobabble, like " find your inner peace."2007, Max Brooks, “Saving Mel Brooks”, in Mens Health, section 22.2:

Forms of psychobabble

third-person singular presentpsychobabbles
present participlepsychobabbling
past participlepsychobabbled
pastpsychobabbled

Origin of psychobabble

From psycho- + babble. First use appears c. 1975 in an article by R.D. Rosen. See cite below.

Words formed from psychobabble

Questions about psychobabble

What does psychobabble mean?
Psychobabble means the jargon of psychology and psychoanalysis, especially when used pretentiously to discuss mundane issues.
How do you use psychobabble in a sentence?
Boston Writer R.D. (for Richard Dean) Rosen calls it psychobabble, and in his new book by that title (Atheneum, $8.95) sees America awash in soggy therapeutic clichés.
What part of speech is psychobabble?
Psychobabble can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce psychobabble?
Psychobabble is pronounced /ˈsaɪkəʊbab(ə)l/ (UK).

Words near psychobabble in the dictionary

  1. psychoanalyzed
  2. psychoanalyzer
  3. psychoanalyzers
  4. psychoanalyzes
  5. psychoanalyzing
  6. psychobabble
  7. psychobabbled
  8. psychobabbler
  9. psychobabblers
  10. psychobabbles
  11. psychobabbling

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: psychobabble (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “psychobabble.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/psychobabble. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.