psychopathic
/ˌsʌɪkəˈpaθɪk
/adjective
1Suffering from or constituting a chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behaviour: a psychopathic disorder...
- Zooming right along, we examine the minds of psychopathic killers.
- A bevy of Welsh shrinks have modified an existing psychological test to identify people with psychopathic tendencies.
- There has been some new interest in the cinematic presentation of the psychopathic killer.
Synonyms
severely mentally ill, mentally ill, insane, mad, certifiable, deranged, demented, of unsound mind, out of one's mind, not in one's right mind, not together, crazed, maniac, maniacal, lunatic, unbalanced, unhinged, unstable, disturbed, distracted, stark mad, manic, frenzied, raving, distraught, frantic, hysterical, delirious, mad as a hatter, mad as a March hare;
Latin non compos mentis;
British sectionable
informal crazy, mental, off one's head, out of one's head, off one's nut, nuts, nutty, nutty as a fruitcake, off one's rocker, not (quite) right in the head, round the bend, stark staring/raving mad, raving mad, bats, batty, bonkers, cuckoo, loopy, loony, bananas, loco, dippy, screwy, with a screw loose, schizoid, touched, gaga, up the pole, not all there, not right upstairs, away with the fairies, foaming at the mouth
British informal barmy, crackers, barking, barking mad, round the twist, off one's trolley, daft, as daft as a brush, not the full shilling
North American informal buggy, off the wall, nutsy, nutso, out of one's tree, meshuga, squirrelly, wacko
Canadian & Australian/New Zealand informal bushed
New Zealand informal porangi
technical psychotic, sociopathic, psychopathological
1.1 informal Abnormal and obsessive; manic: an obsessive attention to detail that looked almost psychopathic...
- Their skits deal with diverse topics ranging from a parody of NPR to psychopathic hitchhikers who catch rides with psychopathic drivers.
- Their defiant ignorance of the national welfare borders sometimes upon the psychopathic.
- Ignorant, crude, even psychopathic, Kelly's columns appealed to the worst elements in American society.
Derivatives
psychopathically
- Fifteen-year-old Kevin ‘is so psychopathically unloving, almost from the moment he is born, that his only concerns when older are how efficiently and sadistically he can slaughter his victims,’ The Guardian explained.
- Their murder acts on them like a religious conversion (to which, indeed, it is sometimes a prelude); and while some killers remain psychopathically indifferent to their crimes, they are relatively few.
- And when corporations behave psychopathically, it's the fault of no human, not even the fat cats in charge.