noun

• 1Exaggerated or uncontrollable emotion or excitement.

  ‘the anti-Semitic hysteria of the 1890s’

  More example sentences

  • ‘Various people are drunk or act strangely or approach mini entertaining hysterias - like whirlpools in cups of tea they pass quickly.’
  • ‘The world cannot tolerate these old claims, most times based on sheer hysteria and emotion.’
  • ‘The whole history of the US, indeed, is punctuated with scares, crazes and occasional mass hysteria.’
  • ‘The media is trying to develop mass hysteria to support the war drive.’
  • ‘The medicated result is a toxic level of mass hysteria for the patient, or in this case, the news subscriber.’
  • ‘Did you never wonder what these sudden waves of mass hysteria were about?’
  • ‘This invoked a further outbreak of mass hysteria amongst the fleet.’
  • ‘The mass hysteria that it created, however, particularly at the funeral, worried me immensely.’
  • ‘Whenever two people from the same side of politics differ there's mass hysteria.’
  • ‘Am I remorseful that it got out of hand and escalated into mass hysteria?’
  • ‘Many people thought they knew the end of the world was nigh, but were lying to prevent mass hysteria.’
  • ‘When Diana died, the country was in a state of something close to mass hysteria.’
  • ‘Perhaps it is too hot, or Madrilenos are just no good at building up mass hysteria.’
  • ‘Plus it played on a big fear of mine for the end of the first third, namely mob rule and mass hysteria.’
  • ‘Tautou also does enough to suggest that beneath her happiness lies hysteria and an emotional volatility.’
  • ‘The mass hysteria by the zealots does not bode well for India or Hinduism.’
  • ‘Several researchers have noted that episodes of mass hysteria are probably far more common than we currently think.’
  • ‘Another expert suggested that the resulting chaos of an attack would be worsened by mass hysteria.’
  • ‘I have a tendency to put these things in the class of mass hysteria.’
  • ‘If aliens were found, would it not be kept quiet due to the potential mass hysteria?’

  Synonyms

  frenzy, wildness, feverishness, irrationality

  View synonyms

• 2An old-fashioned term for a psychological disorder characterized by conversion of psychological stress into physical symptoms (somatization) or a change in self-awareness (such as a fugue state or selective amnesia).

  ‘They never talk about a disorder called hysteria, they talk about the womb wandering.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘Freud learned from Charcot that, in order to understand hysteria, he had to look to psychology rather than to neurology.’
  • ‘When these types break down they tend to develop either hysteria or mania.’
  • ‘Shock often manifests itself as conversion hysteria, where the mind causes the body to be incapacitated.’
  • ‘Great to have your company today, where we're looking at contemporary cases of hysteria.’