psychopomp
/ˈsaɪkəʊpɒmp/
"psychopomp" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“psychopomp” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A spirit, deity, person, etc., who guides the souls of the dead to the afterlife.
Corpus desk
Index EN-psychopomp · psychopomp · English
psychopomp · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "P" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | psychopomp |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈsaɪkəʊpɒmp/ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “psychopomp” in English
Rare enough to double-check
psychopomp is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈsaɪkəʊpɒmp/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A spirit, deity, person, etc., who guides the souls of the dead to the afterlife.".
Zero misspellings are on record for psychopomp in our index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. Our dataset records no confusable match here, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Latin psȳchopompus, from Ancient Greek ψῡχοπομπός (psūkhopompós), from ψῡχή (psūkhḗ, “soul”) + πομπός (pompós, “conductor”). The correct English form is psychopomp, spelled P-S-Y-C-H-O-P-O-M-P.
Definition
- 1A spirit, deity, person, etc., who guides the souls of the dead to the afterlife.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how psychopomp appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
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 conceived as a great dog or wolf.
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.
Etymology
From Latin psȳchopompus, from Ancient Greek ψῡχοπομπός (psūkhopompós), from ψῡχή (psūkhḗ, “soul”) + πομπός (pompós, “conductor”).
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.