hysteria

noun

hys·​te·​ria hi-ˈster-ē-ə  -ˈstir- 

1

: a psychoneurosis marked by emotional excitability and disturbances of the psychogenic, sensory, vasomotor, and visceral (see visceral sense 4) functions

2

: behavior exhibiting overwhelming or unmanageable fear or emotional excess

political hysteria

The plague had caused mass hysteria in the village.

Synonyms

• agitation
• deliriousness
• delirium
• distraction
• fever
• feverishness
• flap
• frenzy
• furor
• furore
• fury
• rage
• rampage
• uproar

Examples of hysteria in a Sentence

A few of the children began to scream, and soon they were all caught up in the hysteria.

Wartime hysteria led to many unfair accusations of treachery.

The spreading of the disease caused mass hysteria in the village.

Recent Examples on the Web

Callouts can set back hotels thousands of dollars in treatments and lost income, and could create hysteria and panic through the Paris Olympics. —Alena Botros, Fortune Europe, 22 June 2024

There was all this hysteria, and so that surprises people. —Allen Farmelo, Robb Report, 17 June 2024

After the hysteria subsided, Maloney explained how the goal, which was scored from a strange angle, made it into the net. —Bob Raissman, New York Daily News, 18 May 2024

Just as there was no rational justification for the existential hysteria that had preceded the Six-Day War, there was no rational basis for the unbridled expansionism that took hold after it. —Tom Segev, Foreign Affairs, 23 Apr. 2024

Word History

Etymology

New Latin, from English hysteric, adjective, from Latin hystericus, from Greek hysterikos, from hystera womb; from the Greek notion that hysteria was peculiar to women and caused by disturbances of the uterus

First Known Use

1772, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Kids Definition

hysteria

noun

hys·​te·​ria his-ˈter-ē-ə  -ˈtir- 

1

: a nervous disorder marked by excitability of the emotions

2

: unmanageable fear or outburst of emotion

Medical Definition

hysteria

noun

hys·​te·​ria his-ˈter-ē-ə  -ˈtir- 

1

a

: a psychoneurosis marked by emotional excitability and disturbances of the psychic, sensory, vasomotor, and visceral functions without an organic basis

b

: a similar condition in domestic animals

2

: behavior exhibiting overwhelming or unmanageable fear or emotional excess