A nervous affection, occurring almost exclusively in women, in which the emotional and reflex excitability is exaggerated, and the will power correspondingly diminished, so that the patient loses control over the emotions, becomes the victim of imaginary sensations, and often falls into paroxism or fits. [1913 Webster]

" The chief symptoms are convulsive, tossing movements of the limbs and head, uncontrollable crying and laughing, and a choking sensation as if a ball were lodged in the throat. The affection presents the most varied symptoms, often simulating those of the gravest diseases, but generally curable by mental treatment alone."

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OXFORD DICTIONARY

hysteria, n.
1 a wild uncontrollable emotion or excitement.
2 a functional disturbance of the nervous system, of psychoneurotic origin.

Etymology

mod.L (as HYSTERIC)

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THESAURUS

hysteria

abandon, abstraction, abulia, accident neurosis, alienation, anxiety, anxiety equivalent, anxiety hysteria, anxiety neurosis, anxiety state, apathy, association neurosis, battle fatigue, blast neurosis, catatonic stupor, combat fatigue, compensation neurosis, compulsion, compulsion neurosis, conversion hysteria, conversion neurosis, craze, dejection, delirium, depression, detachment, ecstasy, elation, emotionalism, euphoria, expectation neurosis, fire and fury, fixation neurosis, folie du doute, frenzy, fright neurosis, furor, furore, fury, homosexual neurosis, hypochondria, hypochondriasis, hysterics, indifference, insensibility, intoxication, lethargy, madness, mania, melancholia, mental distress, neurosis, neuroticism, obsession, obsessional neurosis, occupational neurosis, orgasm, orgy, passion, pathological indecisiveness, pathoneurosis, phobia, preoccupation, psychalgia, psychasthenia, psychomotor disturbance, psychoneurosis, psychoneurotic disorder, psychopathia martialis, rage, rapture, ravishment, regression neurosis, shell shock, situational neurosis, stupor, tearing passion, tic, towering rage, transport, twitching, unresponsiveness, war neurosis, withdrawal

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ROGET THESAURUS

hysteria

Insanity

N insanity, disordered reason, disordered intellect, diseased mind, unsound mind, abnormal mind, derangement, unsoundness, psychosis, neurosis, cognitive disorder, affective disorder, insanity, lunacy, madness, mania, rabies, furor, mental alienation, aberration, paranoia, schizophrenia, dementation, dementia, demency, phrenitis, phrensy, frenzy, raving, incoherence, wandering, delirium, calenture of the brain, delusion, hallucination, lycanthropy, brain storm, vertigo, dizziness, swimming, sunstroke, coup de soleil, siriasis, fanaticism, infatuation, craze, oddity, eccentricity, twist, monomania (caprice), kleptodipsomania, hypochondriasis, melancholia, depression, clinical depression, severe depression, hysteria, amentia, screw loose, tile loose, slate loose, bee in one's bonnet, rats in the upper story, dotage, insane, mad, lunatic, loony, crazy, crazed, aliene, non compos mentis, not right, cracked, touched, bereft of reason, all possessed, unhinged, unsettled in one's mind, insensate, reasonless, beside oneself, demented, daft, phrenzied, frenzied, frenetic, possessed, possessed with a devil, deranged, maddened, moonstruck, shatterpated, mad-brained, scatter brained, shatter brained, crackbrained, touched, tetched, off one's head, maniacal, delirious, lightheaded, incoherent, rambling, doting, wandering, frantic, raving, stark staring mad, stark raving mad, wild-eyed, berserk, delusional, hallucinatory, corybantic, dithyrambic, rabid, giddy, vertiginous, wild, haggard, mazed, flighty, distracted, distraught, depressed, agitated, hyped up, bewildered, mad as a March hare, mad as a hatter, of unsound mind, touched in one's head, wrong in one's head, not right in one's head, not in one's right mind, not right in one's wits, upper story, out of one's mind, out of one's wits, out of one's skull, far gone, out of one's senses, out of one's wits, not in one's right mind, fanatical, infatuated, odd, eccentric, hypped, hyppish, spaced out, imbecile, silly, like one possessed, the mind having lost its balance, the reason under a cloud, tet exaltee, tet montee, ira furor brevis est, omnes stultos insanire.

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