psyop

noun

psy·​op ˈsī-ˌäp 

variants or PSYOP or less commonly psy-op or PsyOp

plural psyops or PSYOPs also psy-ops or PsyOps

1

: a military operation usually aimed at influencing the enemy's state of mind through noncombative means (such as distribution of leaflets)

Psyops use a wide array of communications media—including radio and TV broadcasts, loudspeakers, newspapers, magazines, leaflets and even comic books—to help win or prevent wars.

—Harold Kennedy

A PSYOP is a form of military operation that targets the emotional and mental state of the enemy.

—Mitzi Perdue

"My job in psy-ops is to play with people's heads, to get the enemy to behave the way we want them to behave," says Lt. Colonel Michael Holmes …

—Michael Hastings

a CIA psyops/psyop campaign

2

: someone or something used by the government to influence the population's opinions and attitudes

… some hard-line conservatives have raised conspiracy theories … that [singer-songwriter Taylor] Swift is a government psyop planted by the Pentagon to aid Democrats …

—Rachel Schilke

Examples of psyop in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

When that rehash died down and she was finally getting defeated in the sales war, Swift ran a celebrity-overload psyops campaign by dating a guy in the Super Bowl. —Matt Thompson, SPIN, 28 Nov. 2024

Remove the byzantine build-up of psyops and special ops and clandestine geopolitical status-quo-keeping, and that’s all that’s left for Joe and the Lioness crew. —Andy Andersen, Vulture, 24 Nov. 2024

The startling multiplication of the contests reminds me of the summer of 2020, when otherwise rational-seeming people suggested that the FBI was planting caches of fireworks in various American cities as part of a convoluted psyop. —Kaitlyn Tiffany, The Atlantic, 21 Nov. 2024

Still, if 88th Mechanized Brigade is a psyops, why did the general staff in Kyiv give it up so easily? Follow me on Twitter. —David Axe, Forbes, 31 Oct. 2024

The review also found that military leaders didn’t maintain enough control over its psyop contractors, the person said. —Chris Bing and Joel Shectman, USA TODAY, 14 June 2024

Davidson specializes in psyops, so he’s designed the Colonel’s punishment to be the most humiliating possible: relegating him to a remote non-combat service base currently run by the Colonel’s estranged daughter. —Rosy Cordero, Deadline, 2 Oct. 2024

To Nichols, the rumors were more of a psyop for attention than anything else. —Makena Kelly, WIRED, 29 Aug. 2024

But Shyamalan has bought into today’s appalling celebrity machinery, the same disingenuous propaganda that makes critics and skeptics suspect that the Taylor Swift phenomenon might be a CIA psyop. —Armond White, National Review, 14 Aug. 2024

Word History

Etymology

psychological operation

First Known Use

1965, in the meaning defined at sense 1