Word.ws English Dictionary

psyop

/ˈsaɪ.ɒp/

psyop noun: an instance of psyops: a psychological operation, usually of a clandestine sort.

Noun

psyop (plural psyops)

  1. An instance of psyops: a psychological operation, usually of a clandestine sort.
    • The psyop wing of Disney’s marketing department is now so hair-raisingly effective that we can only wonder what will become of little girls imprinted so deeply with such cultish brand devotion.2009 January 15, Cintra Wilson, “All’s Fair in Beauty and War”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 29 Nov 2013
    • Cynics saw an opportunist pandering to the gullible masses. Conspiracy theorists, of course, saw a CIA psyop.2026 July 1, Will Oremus, “So Long to America’s Favorite Everymensch”, in Jeffrey Goldberg, editor, The Atlantic, Washington, D.C.: The Atlantic Monthly Group, →ISSN, →OCLC
    1. (Internet) Something viewed as inauthentic and pushing an agenda.
      • If the Swift/Kelce pairing is a government psyop, as conservatives want to believe, the CIA sure knows how to stage damn good football.2024 February 12, Alaina Demopoulos, “Romcom ending: Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s big night at the Super Bowl”, in The Guardian, →ISSN
  2. A psychological operative; a person who participates in psychological operations.

Verb

psyop (third-person singular simple present psyops, present participle psyopping, simple past and past participle psyopped)

  1. (informal, rare, transitive) To manipulate or influence someone's thoughts, emotions, or behavior in a surreptitious or strategic way.
    • "I didn't mean anything. I just wondered about them psyopping her father - if it still bothered her so much."1984, Condé Nast Publications (publisher), Analog Science Fiction and Fact, volume 104
    • Undeterred by the presence of his most senior military sponsors, this spokesperson for the liberal arts psyopped the eager students of psyops itself;1991, John Arden, Cogs Tyrannic, Four Stories, page 390

Examples of psyop in a sentence

  • The Nevis successionists have all been bought and psyopped.2008 May 21, flyin...@email.com, “INVASION MESSAGE RECIEVED”, in rec.games.chess.politics (Usenet):
  • Anyone who eats in moderation ends up limiting the amount of healthy essential food he needs because he has been PSYOPPED into thinking their excess is bad.2023, Matthew Lysiak, Fiat Food, Why Inflation Destroyed Our Health and How Bitcoin Fixes It:

Forms of psyop

Noun
pluralpsyops
alternative formpsy-op
Verb
third-person singular presentpsyops
present participlepsyopping
past participlepsyopped
pastpsyopped

Origin of psyop

Back-formation from psyops.

Words formed from psyop

Questions about psyop

What does psyop mean?
Psyop means an instance of psyops: a psychological operation, usually of a clandestine sort.
How do you use psyop in a sentence?
The Nevis successionists have all been bought and psyopped.
What part of speech is psyop?
Psyop can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce psyop?
Psyop is pronounced /ˈsaɪ.ɒp/.
What is the plural of psyop?
The plural of psyop is psyops.

Words near psyop in the dictionary

  1. psyllic acid
  2. psyllid
  3. psyllids
  4. psyllium
  5. psylliums
  6. psyop
  7. psyopped
  8. psyoppery
  9. psyopping
  10. psyops
  11. Psyspam

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: psyop (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.

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

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