Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A fit of uncontrollable laughing or crying.
  • noun A person suffering from hysteria. No longer in clinical use.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A hysteric person; one who suffers from hysteria.
  • Same as hysteretic.
  • Relating to, resulting from, affected with, or subject to hysteria.
  • Having the characteristics of hysteria; emotionally disordered; fitful; frantic.
  • noun A fit of hysteria: commonly in the plural.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Of or pertaining to hysteria.
  • adjective In a state of hysteria; affected, or troubled, with hysterics; uncontrollably emotional; convulsive, fitful.
  • adjective In a state of panic or behaving in a wild irrational manner, due to fear or emotional trauma.
  • adjective Resembling hysteria.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective hysterical
  • noun A hysterical person.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a person suffering from hysteria
  • adjective characterized by or arising from psychoneurotic hysteria

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Latin hystericus, hysterical, from Greek husterikos, from husterā, womb (from the former idea that disturbances in the womb caused hysteria).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin hystericus, from Ancient Greek ὑστερικός (hysterikos, "suffering in the uterus, hysterical"), from ὑστέρα (hustera, "womb").

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