# "psyche!" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 9, 2017, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psyche/786216 "2017-05-09T19:20:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psyche/786216/1 "2017-05-09T19:20:49Z")
When I was growing up, this was a word kids would use when tormenting someone by pretending to offer something the other kid wanted, then yanking it away. I learned the use of it long before I read/knew a word like “psychological”, so I always wondered how that might have entered the lexicon. This would have been from the late 1970s in New York City. I can cite a well-known Eddie Murphy stand-up routine from around 1983, where some kids taunt another kid who didn’t get any ice cream with “want a lick? – PSYCHE!” So it can’t have been a completely local thing. (Though Murphy did come from my neck of the woods.) On the flip side, I wonder when it disappeared from the lexicon. My teenaged kids say they’ve never heard anyone say this, and I still live 10 blocks from where I grew up. ---
**Author:** ![TimeWinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psyche/786216/2 "2017-05-09T19:22:19Z")
The television show, “Psych” got it’s name from just this usage (and a pun on “psychic”), so it’s not very long gone (it’s only been off the air a few years). ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psyche/786216/3 "2017-05-09T19:27:53Z")
[Etymology Online](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=psych) doesn’t list it as an interjection, but it says it has been used to mean “outsmart” since 1934. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psyche/786216/4 "2017-05-09T19:33:18Z")
> [@robardin](#): > > When I was growing up, this was a word kids would use when tormenting someone by pretending to offer something the other kid wanted, then yanking it away. I learned the use of it long before I read/knew a word like “psychological”, so I always wondered how that might have entered the lexicon. This would have been from the late 1970s in New York City. > > I can cite a well-known Eddie Murphy stand-up routine from around 1983, where some kids taunt another kid who didn’t get any ice cream with “want a lick? – PSYCHE!” So it can’t have been a completely local thing. (Though Murphy did come from my neck of the woods.) > > On the flip side, I wonder when it disappeared from the lexicon. My teenaged kids say they’ve never heard anyone say this, and I still live 10 blocks from where I grew up. As I recall “psych” is short for “psych out” which had been used back into the 60s to mean “undermine someone’s confidence in order to defeat them.” It seems straightforward to shorten that to “psych” and alter the meaning to refer to fooling someone in any way. Here’s a video of someone using the “psych” handshake fakeout in 2006 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJMK4UebZVs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJMK4UebZVs) ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psyche/786216/5 "2017-05-09T19:38:52Z")
From the Oxford English Dictionary " b. To gain a psychological advantage over; to intimidate, demoralize. Usu. with out. Cf. psyched adj. 1. 1963 Amer. Speech 38 205 Get psyched out, v. phr., slang term applied to losing one’s nerve while skiing downhill. 1971 E. Bullins in W. King Black Short Story Anthol. (1972) 63 Dandy thought that the way she managed things and worked the love and affection from people was like a pimp who psychs out his whores. 1976 J. Quarry in 6,000 Words 165 Pressure doesn’t psych me. 1977 I. Shaw Beggarman, Thief iii. ix. 318, I could see something was psyching him out and it worried me. 1989 Indian Bookworm’s Jrnl. Spring 16/1 The crowd in ugly mood, surges against the frail police line…They’re all staring at you, trying to psyche you out. 2001 E. Colfer Artemis Fowl v. 99 You’re absolutely right. I have no clue what’s going on. So there’s no future in trying to psych me out." " ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psyche/786216/6 "2017-05-09T20:31:53Z")
Hm. I never thought of this usage as a shortened form of “psych(ing) out”, which is more of a strategical advantageous “make him think left then you go right” ploy than a Nelson Muntz style “ha ha!”, but I guess it could be, on a very childish level. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psyche/786216/7 "2017-05-09T20:56:57Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > As I recall “psych” is short for “psych out” which had been used back into the 60s to mean “undermine someone’s confidence in order to defeat them.” It seems straightforward to shorten that to “psych” and alter the meaning to refer to fooling someone in any way. This is how I remember it from the early-'70s, or maybe even the late-'60s. We’d trick/fool/‘undermine someone’s confidence’ and say, ‘Psych!’ We’d also say, for example, ‘Ooh did you see how Bill psyched out Bob at lunch? Outta sight!’ So basically, when you say ‘Psych’ to someone, you are informing that person that you have successfully performed a Vulcan/Jedi mind trick upon him or her. ---
**Author:** ![PaperBlob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/58956e/32.png) [@PaperBlob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PaperBlob)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psyche/786216/8 "2017-05-09T21:32:10Z")
> [@robardin](#): > > When I was growing up, this was a word kids would use when tormenting someone by pretending to offer something the other kid wanted, then yanking it away. My friends and I used this all the time in the mid-1970s in Willingboro, NJ (Philadelphia area). In general, it meant “Ha ha, just kidding!” Often used in the context described by the OP. My kids, born in the 1990s, who live just a few miles away from where I grew up, do not use this. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psyche/786216/9 "2017-05-09T21:47:42Z")
In the early 60s I understood “to psych” and “to psych out” to mean exactly the same thing. They’d mostly commonly be used in the form. “I psyched you out” or “You got psyched.” ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psyche/786216/10 "2017-05-09T23:17:09Z")
It’s used by the Scranton PA-born mid 40s Michael Scott every now and then in _The Office_ (US), set in contemporary till-2014 (?). ---
**Author:** ![skdo23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@skdo23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skdo23)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2017, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psyche/786216/11 "2017-05-11T02:34:39Z")
Based on my observations it’s still a thing, but to a lesser extent that it used to be. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2017, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psyche/786216/12 "2017-05-11T03:34:34Z")
Early seventies Chicago, very common. “Hey, isn’t that [noted Cubs or Sox player] across the street?” [excitedly turning to look] “Psych!” The schoolkids I work with these days don’t say it. I’ve been teaching since the eighties and not sure I’ve ever heard it from them. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2017, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psyche/786216/13 "2017-05-11T03:44:57Z")
Okay but if contemporary slang says that “bad” means good then spelling it “syke” is okay.