3. psyche (cap.) (in a tale related by Apuleius) a personification of the soul in the form of a beautiful girl visited at night by Cupid, abandoned by him when she tries to learn his identity, and reunited with him only after she performs arduous tasks for Venus.
Etymology: (1650–60; < L ps&ymacr;chē < Gk ps&ymacr;chē lit., breath, der. of ps&ymacracute;chein to breathe, blow)
Definition of 'psyche'
Princeton's WordNet
1. (noun)mind, head, brain, psyche, nous that which is responsible for one's thoughts and feelings; the seat of the faculty of reason "his mind wandered"; "I couldn't get his words out of my head"
2. (noun)soul, psyche the immaterial part of a person; the actuating cause of an individuallife
3. (noun)Psyche (Greek mythology) a beautiful princess loved by Cupid who visited her at night and told her she must not try to see him; became the personification of the soul
1. psyche in the later Greekmythology the youngest of three daughters of a king, and of such beauty as to eclipse the attractions and awake the jealousy of Venus, the goddess of beauty, who in consequencesent Cupid, her son, to inspire her with love for a hideous monster, and so compass her ruin. Cupid, fascinated with her himself, spirited her away to a palace furnished with every delight, but instead of delivering her over to the monster, visited her himself at night as her husband, and left her before daybreak in the morning, because she must on no account know who he was. Here her sisters came to see her, and in their jealousy persuaded her to assure herself that it was not a monster that she slept with, so that she lit a lamp the next night to discover, when a drop of oil from it fell on his shoulder as he lay asleep beside her, upon which he at a bound started up and vanished out of sight. She thereupon gave way to a long wail of lamentation and set off a-wandering over the wide world in search of her lost love, till she came to the palace of Venus, her arch-enemy, who seized on her person and made her her slave, subjecting her to a series of services, all of which she accomplished to the letter, so that Venus was obliged to relent and consent that, in the presence of all the gods of Olympus, Cupid and she should be united in immortalwedlock. It is the story of the trials of the soul to achieve immortality. See "Stories from the Greek Mythology," by the Editor.
Definitions of psyche 
