alienist

[ eyl-yuh-nist, ey-lee-uh- ]

noun

1. (formerly) a doctor specializing in the treatment of mental illness.
2. an expert witness in a sanity trial.

alienist

/ ˈeɪljənɪst; ˈeɪlɪə- /

noun

1. a psychiatrist who specializes in the legal aspects of mental illness
2. obsolete.
   a person who practises alienism

Word History and Origins

Origin of alienist¹

1860–65; alien(ation) + -ist; compare French aliéniste in same sense

Example Sentences

The team of sleuths, led by the analytical, dispassionate alienist Kreizler, moved within that world's beauties and grotesqueries quite smoothly.

From Salon

At first alienists described this condition as “moral insanity” and those who exhibited the disorder as “moral imbeciles.”

From Literature

Perhaps, like the alienist, he who conforms best is the craziest one of all.

From The New Yorker

The alienists’ assessment, bolstered by physician William Black’s “original, useful, and authentick” statistics from London’s Bethlem asylum, gave the government leverage to replace the king with a regent — his son, later King George IV.

From Nature

In this new series, Ives undergoes counselling with an alienist psychotherapist, and later appears in a padded cell with tears streaming down her face, hissing ominously at her doctors: “You think you know evil?”

From The Guardian