hysteria

CEFRC1

/hɪˈstɛɹiə/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

01
noun
Extreme and uncontrolled excitement, fear, or emotion.
02
noun
Extra detail
A mental disorder characterized by emotional excitability etc. without an organic cause.

Examples

Tom doesn't know the difference between passion and hysteria.
Hysteria is no laughing matter.

At a glance

Sits at C1 on the CEFR scale

Senses: 5
Parts of speech: 1
Citations: 2
Synonyms: 2

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

Synonym of conversion disorder.
Behavior exhibiting excessive or uncontrollable emotions, in a wide range from joy to panic but usually including anxiety or fear.
Any disorder of women with some psychiatric symptoms without other diagnosis, ascribed to uterine influences on the female body, lack of pregnancy, or lack of sex.

More examples

In context

The Goldstone Report created hysteria.

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The sudden false fire alarm caused widespread blank among the crowd in the movie theater.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Citations

The word in print, with each source given in full.

Zinoviev was unwell and feverish. He was told he was to be transferred to another cell. But when he saw the guards he at once understood. All accounts agree that he collapsed, yelling in a high-pitched voice a desperate appeal to Stalin to keep his word. He gave the impression of hysteria, but this is probably not fair, as his voice was always very piercing when he was excited, and he was perhaps trying to make a last speech. He was, in addition, still suffering from heart and liver trouble, so that some sort of collapse is understandable.
1968, Robert Conquest, “Old Bolsheviks Confess”, in The Great Terror: Stalin's Purge of the Thirties, Macmillan Company, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 117
At the very end of the Middle Ages, Breughel depicted country folk wrapped up in fits of mass hysteria, and the historical accounts of these rural frenzies have explained the delirium in terms of the slender diet on which the poor had to subsist during the hungry gap.
1999, Robert Lacey, Danny Danziger, The Year 1000: What life was like at the turn of The First Millennium, London: Abacus, published 2000, page 102

Keep hysteria

Looking a word up is the easy part. LexUp remembers which words you have met and brings them back at the point you were about to forget them.

Download on theApp Store Get it onGoogle Play

Origin

noun

From New Latin hysteria, a back-formation from Latin hystericus, from Ancient Greek ὑστερικός (husterikós, “suffering in the uterus, hysterical”), from ὑστέρα (hustéra, “womb”). Compare French hystérie.

Deep Dive

noun

More examples

Related

Quick test

The sudden false fire alarm caused widespread blank— among the crowd in the movie theater.

Nearby

Origin

noun

The sudden false fire alarm caused widespread blank among the crowd in the movie theater.