Imagine what is inside someone's head being turned outward, so that it can be seen. That is the whole word in one picture. First it named the drugs that do this to a person's own seeing and hearing, so that colours move and sounds stretch. Then artists tried to put that same picture on paper, on cloth and into music, and everything they made carried the name too: a swirling poster is called psychedelic because it shows you, on the outside, what the word first described on the inside.
From the word’s history
The word is made of Ancient Greek psyche, 'mind or soul', and delos, 'manifest, visible', with the English ending -ic. It was coined by the English psychiatrist Humphry Osmond in a 1956 letter to Aldous Huxley. So the name literally says 'mind-showing', which is exactly the picture both the drug sense and the art sense share.
這個字由古希臘文 psychē（心靈）和 dēlos（顯現、看得見）組成，後面加上英文字尾 -ic。依來源記載，是英國精神科醫師 Humphry Osmond 在 1956 年寫給 Aldous Huxley 的信中造出來的。字面就是「讓心靈顯現出來」——正好是藥物那一支和藝術那一支共用的畫面。
Packet Wiktionary entries 'psychedelic' adj (source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:1104882985:20434) and noun (kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:1104903419:8451): "From Ancient Greek ψυχή (psukhḗ, 'mind, soul') + δῆλος (dêlos, 'manifest, visible') + English -ic ..., coined by the English psychiatrist Humphry...
登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。
原始詞典資料4 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
psychedelicadj/ˈsaɪ.kəˌdɛl.ɪk/
- 1
Of, containing, generating, or reminiscent of drug-induced altered awareness, distortions of perception, hallucinations, etc.
- With those drugs has come the psychedelic philosophy, an impassioned belief in the self-revealing, mind-expanding powers of potent weeds and seeds and chemical compounds known to man since prehistory but wholly alien to the rationale of Western society.
- 2
Of graphics, etc.: having abstract shapes, bright colours, etc., reminiscent of drug-induced distortions of perception or hallucinations.
- There was a woman sitting on the edge of his bed. She had coral-orange hair, beryl-blue eyes, arched brows, freckles, a coy smile, a psychedelic labcoat and she was, he suddenly realized, his best friend of over twenty years.
- 3
Awesome, cool, groovy.
psychedelicnoun/ˈsaɪ.kəˌdɛl.ɪk/
- 1
Any psychoactive substance (such as LSD or psilocybin) which, when consumed, causes perceptual changes (sometimes erratic and uncontrollable), visual hallucination, and altered awareness of the body and mind.
- I was going to become a three-drug connection to all my friends, psychedelics, hash and pot.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。