HYSTERIA

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does hysteria mean? 

• HYSTERIA (noun)
  The noun HYSTERIA has 3 senses:

1. state of violent mental agitation

2. excessive or uncontrollable fear

3. neurotic disorder characterized by violent emotional outbreaks and disturbances of sensory and motor functions

  Familiarity information: HYSTERIA used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• HYSTERIA (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

State of violent mental agitation

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

craze; delirium; frenzy; fury; hysteria

Hypernyms ("hysteria" is a kind of...):

mania; manic disorder (a mood disorder; an affective disorder in which the victim tends to respond excessively and sometimes violently)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "hysteria"):

nympholepsy (a frenzy of emotion; as for something unattainable)

epidemic hysertia; mass hysteria (a condition in which a large group of people exhibit the same state of violent mental agitation)

Derivation:

hysterical (marked by excessive or uncontrollable emotion)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Excessive or uncontrollable fear

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Hypernyms ("hysteria" is a kind of...):

fear; fearfulness; fright (an emotion experienced in anticipation of some specific pain or danger (usually accompanied by a desire to flee or fight))

Derivation:

hysterical (marked by excessive or uncontrollable emotion)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Neurotic disorder characterized by violent emotional outbreaks and disturbances of sensory and motor functions

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

hysteria; hysterical neurosis

Hypernyms ("hysteria" is a kind of...):

neurosis; neuroticism; psychoneurosis (a mental or personality disturbance not attributable to any known neurological or organic dysfunction)

Meronyms (parts of "hysteria"):

mimesis (any disease that shows symptoms characteristic of another disease)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "hysteria"):

anxiety hysteria (a form of hysteria having features of both conversion disorder and anxiety neurosis)

hysterocatalepsy (hysteria with cataleptic symptoms)

Derivation:

hysteric; hysterical (characterized by or arising from psychoneurotic hysteria)

 Context examples 

I mastered the rising hysteria, lifted up my head, and took a firm stand on the stool.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

He paused and put his hand to his throat, and I could see, in spite of his collected manner, that he was wrestling against the approaches of the hysteria—“I understood, a drawer...”

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Class of mental disorders milder than psychosis, including hysteria, fugue, obsession, phobia, etc.

(Neurosis, NIH CRISP Thesaurus)

Even in her hysteria she knew it, and she was glad that she had been able to hold up under the strain until everything had been accomplished.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

"A bit of hysteria and melodrama, eh?" he queried.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Mercedes screamed, cried, laughed, and manifested the chaotic abandonment of hysteria.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)