hysterics

nounC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechleans spoken

Hysterics is an uncontrollable fit of crying, laughing or panic. Beyond stopping without help.

The word is always plural and usually appears in going into hysterics or being in hysterics, and the second often means helpless laughter rather than distress, which is a considerable range. It has a difficult history, since hysteria was a medical diagnosis applied almost exclusively to women for centuries and rooted in the Greek word for the womb. That history is why the adjective hysterical is loaded when used about a woman's argument.

Definitions of hysterics

1nounhystericsA fit of uncontrollable emotion, especially crying or laughing.C2
“The whole table was in hysterics by the end of the story.”

Where it comes from

Ancient Greek
ὑστερικός — suffering in the uterus, hysterical
Latin
hystericus
English
hysteric
English, today
hysterics

Built from

ὑστέρα · Ancient Greek — womb

hysteric comes from Latin hystericus, from Ancient Greek ὑστερικός (“suffering in the uterus, hysterical”), from ὑστέρα (“womb”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

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