hə̇ˈsterēə, -tir- noun
( -s )
Etymology: New Latin, from English hyster ic + New Latin -ia
1.
a. : a psychoneurosis that is marked by emotional excitability involving disturbances of the psychic, sensory, vasomotor, and visceral functions
b. : a similar disease of domesticated animals ; specifically : canine hysteria
2. : conduct or an outbreak of conduct exhibiting unmanageable fear or emotional excess in individuals or groups
could not fail to destroy his system, never very strong and pitched to hysteria from the first — H.M.Ledig-Rowohlt
weeping generously … and wildly giggling, in a hysteria which she could not control — Arnold Bennett
swept up into the systematized hysteria of the war — Scott Fitzgerald
the ghost dance was the religious expression of a social hysteria — W.W.Howells
Synonyms: see mania