gestalt

Borrowed from German Gestalt (“shape, figure, form”). The German term can also apply to a geometric or graphical shape, unlike its usage in English.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ɡəˈʃtælt/, /ɡəˈʃtɑːlt/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ɡəˈʃtɔlt/, /ɡəˈstɔlt/

gestalt (plural gestalts or gestalten)

1. A collection of physical, biological, psychological or symbolic elements that creates a whole, unified concept or pattern which is other than the sum of its parts, due to the relationships between the parts (of a character, personality, entity, or being)

   This biography is the first one to consider fully the writer's gestalt.

   • 2003 August 1, Jay Kirk, “Watching the Detectives”, in Harpers Magazine, volume 307, number 1839, page 61:

     The clusters of behavioral gestalten... the probability factors... the subtypes of crimes... the constellations of criminal subtypes...

   • 2008, Jonathan Nasaw, Fear Itself

     Obviously it was related to the entire gestalt of Simon's polyphobia and compensatory counterphobia. The boys used to watch horror movies on late-night television […]

2. Shape, form
   • 1977, John L. Hess and Karen Hess, The Taste of America, New York: Grossman:

     Mary did not approve of the Eleanor gestalt. "I been to Woonsocket S.D., Eleanor McGovern's hometown," she said, "and nobody there? I mean nobody? dresses like that."

   • 1996, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, The Origins of Grammar, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press:

     ... depending on the kinds of speech children hear directed to them, they may first learn unanalyzed "gestalts" (e.g., social expressions like "What's that?" uttered as a single unit) instead of learning single words that are then freely recombined ...

   • 1998, David Foster Wallace, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, 1st Back Bay edition, Boston: Little, Brown and Co.:

     So different were our appearances and approaches and general gestalts that we had something of an epic rivalry from '74 through '77.

• Gestalt

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