hysteria

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

• (US) IPA^(key): /hɨˈstɛɹijə/, /hɨˈstɪɹijə/

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hysteria (usually uncountable, plural hysterias or hysteriæ)

1. Behavior exhibiting excessive or uncontrollable emotion, such as fear or panic.
2. (medicine) A mental disorder characterized by emotional excitability etc. without an organic cause.
   • 1974, Thomas S. Szasz, M.D., chapter 13, in The Myth of Mental Illness‎, →ISBN, page 218:

     The typical cases of hysteria cited by Freud thus involved a
     moral conflict—a conflict about what the young women in
     question wanted to do with themselves. Did they want to
     prove that they were good daughters by taking care of their
     sick fathers? Or did they want to become independent of their
     parents, by having a family of their own, or in some other
     way? I believe it was the tension between these conflicting
     aspirations that was the crucial issue in these cases. The sexual
     problem—say, of the daughter's incestuous cravings for her
     father—was secondary (if that important); it was stimulated,
     perhaps, by the interpersonal situation in which the one had to
     attend to the other's body. Moreover, it was probably easier to
     admit the sexual problem to consciousness and to worry about
     it than to raise the ethical problem indicated.³ In the final
     analysis, the latter is a vastly difficult problem in living. It
     cannot be "solved" by any particular maneuver but requires
     rather decision making about basic goals, and, having made
     the decisions, dedicated efforts to attain them.

3. (informal, pathology) Synonym of conversion disorder
4. (obsolete, pathology, until early 20th century) 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.

• (mental disorder): female hysteria
• (obsolete female disorder): uterine melancholy

• hysteric, hysterics
• hysterical

• hysteria in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• hysteria in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911
• hysteria at OneLook Dictionary Search

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hysteria

1. hysteria

• joukkohysteria