psychosis
/saɪˈkəʊsɪs/
"psychosis" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“psychosis” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #21,321 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #21,321
- frequency rank, English
- 9
- letters
- 15
- tracked misspellings
- 1
- confusable pair
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A severe mental disorder, sometimes with physical damage to the brain, marked by a deranged personality and a distorted view of reality.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | psychosis |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /saɪˈkəʊsɪs/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #21,321 |
| Misspellings tracked | 15 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “psychosis” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for psychosis is 9 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /saɪˈkəʊsɪs/. Corpus data places it at rank #21,321 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "A severe mental disorder, sometimes with physical damage to the brain, marked by a deranged personality and a distorted view of reality.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 15 likely wrong-spelling variants for psychosis, with forms such as "ppsychosis", "pscyhosis", and "pssychosis". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 1 confusable-pair relationship, "psychotic", since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From psych- + -osis or from Ancient Greek ψύχωσις (psúkhōsis, “animation, principle of life”). The correct English form is psychosis, spelled P-S-Y-C-H-O-S-I-S.
Definition
- 1A severe mental disorder, sometimes with physical damage to the brain, marked by a deranged personality and a distorted view of reality.
Etymology
From psych- + -osis or from Ancient Greek ψύχωσις (psúkhōsis, “animation, principle of life”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ppsychosis,pscyhosis,pssychosis,psycchosis,psychhosis,psychoiss,psychosiss,psychossi,psychossis,psychsois,psycohsis,psyhcosis,psyychosis,pyschosis,spychosis
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of psychosis - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “psychosis”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is P-S-Y-C-H-O-S-I-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /saɪˈkəʊsɪs/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “psychotic” - see the side-by-side comparison. psychosis vs psychotic
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.