Word.ws English Dictionary

psychopomp

Syllables: psy·cho·pomp/ˈsaɪkəʊpɒmp/US/ˈsaɪkoʊpɑmp/

psychopomp noun: a spirit, deity, person, etc., who guides the souls of the dead to the afterlife.

Noun

psychopomp (plural psychopomps)

  1. A spirit, deity, person, etc., who guides the souls of the dead to the afterlife.
    • As the souls of the departed are symbolized as rats, so is the psychopomp himself often figured as a dog. Sarameias, the Vedic counterpart of Hermes and Odin, sometimes appears invested with canine attributes; and countless other examples go to show that by the early Aryan mind the howling wind was...1872, John Fiske, Myths and Myth-Makers
    • It is generally assumed that the sun goddess functions in the Shapash hymn as psychopomp, transporter of the dead to and from their netherly abode.1994, Brian B. Schmidt, Israel's Beneficent Dead: Ancestor Cult and Necromancy in Ancient Israelite Religion and Tradition, page 84

psychopomp meaning in Arabic and Thai

psychopomp in Arabic

entity who assists souls
مُرْشِد الأَرْوَاح muršid al-ʔarwāḥ

psychopomp in Thai

entity who assists souls
ยมทูต yom-má-tûut

Examples of psychopomp in a sentence

  • As the souls of the departed are symbolized as rats, so is the psychopomp himself often figured as a dog.1872, John Fiske, Myths and Myth-Makers:
  • For most of us, Dr Wilder Penrose was our amiable Prospero, the psychopomp who steered our darkest dreams towards the daylight.2000, J. G. Ballard, Super-Cannes, Fourth Estate, published 2011, page 3:
  • This is an allusion to Hermes as the guide of souls, the psychopomp; an important element of Hermes' nature that receives only this scant mention in the Hymn.2012, Dennis L. Merritt, Hermes, Ecopsychology, and Complexity Theory, volume 3, page 43:

Forms of psychopomp

pluralpsychopomps

Origin of psychopomp

From Latin psȳchopompus, from Ancient Greek ψῡχοπομπός (psūkhopompós), from ψῡχή (psūkhḗ, “soul”) + πομπός (pompós, “conductor”).

Questions about psychopomp

What does psychopomp mean?
Psychopomp means a spirit, deity, person, etc., who guides the souls of the dead to the afterlife.
What is psychopomp in Arabic?
Psychopomp in Arabic is مُرْشِد الأَرْوَاح (muršid al-ʔarwāḥ). See Psychopomp meaning in Arabic.
How do you use psychopomp in a sentence?
As the souls of the departed are symbolized as rats, so is the psychopomp himself often figured as a dog.
What part of speech is psychopomp?
Psychopomp is a noun.
How do you pronounce psychopomp?
Psychopomp is pronounced /ˈsaɪkəʊpɒmp/ (UK).
What is the plural of psychopomp?
The plural of psychopomp is psychopomps.

Words near psychopomp in the dictionary

  1. psychoplasticity
  2. psychoplastogen
  3. psychoplastogens
  4. psychopolitical
  5. psychopolitics
  6. psychopomp
  7. psychopompoi
  8. psychopompos
  9. psychopomps
  10. psychopractice
  11. psychopractices

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: psychopomp (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-psychopomp.wav.

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