Hysteria is wild uncontrollable emotion spreading through people. Mass hysteria, media hysteria, whipped up hysteria.
The word has a shameful history, since it was a diagnosis applied almost only to women and comes from the Greek for a womb, on the theory that the organ wandered. It survives in the sense of a crowd or a press panic.
1nounhysteriaWild uncontrollable emotion spreading through people.
“News of the shortage caused mass hysteria, and people rushed to empty the shops.”
hysteria is a panic.
hy-STERIA → HISTORY
One shout from the back of the hall, and inside a minute every person in it is on their feet shouting the same thing. The history book that records the evening cannot say what was said.
hooks ontohistory
From Greek hystera, a womb, from the old theory that the organ caused the condition in women.
Proto-Indo-European
*úd
Ancient Greek
ὑστερικός — suffering in the uterus, hysterical
Latin
hystericus
New Latin
hysteria
English, today
hysteria
Built from
From New Latin hysteria, a back-formation from Latin hystericus, from Ancient Greek ὑστερικός (“suffering in the uterus, hysterical”), from ὑστέρα (“womb”). Compare French hystérie.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA