In the 16th century, Turkish women could divorce their husbands if the man failed to keep his family’s pot filled with coffee.
hysteria
(noun) excessive or uncontrollable fear
craze, delirium, frenzy, fury, hysteria
(noun) state of violent mental agitation
hysteria, hysterical neurosis
(noun) neurotic disorder characterized by violent emotional outbreaks and disturbances of sensory and motor functions
Source: WordNet® 3.1
hysteria (usually uncountable, plural hysterias or hysteriae or hysteriæ)
Behavior exhibiting excessive or uncontrollable emotion, such as fear or panic.
(medicine) A mental disorder characterized by emotional excitability etc. without an organic cause.
(informal, pathology) synonym of conversion disorder
(obsolete, pathology, until early 20th century) Any disorder of women with some psychiatric symptoms without other diagnosis, ascribed to uterine influences on the female body, lack of pregnancy, or lack of sex.
• (mental disorder): female hysteria
• (obsolete female disorder): uterine melancholy
• this year
Source: Wiktionary
Hys*te"ri*a, n. Etym: [NL.: cf. F. hystérie. See Hysteric.] (Med.)
Definition: 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.
Note: 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.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition
3 April 2025
(noun) an assemblage of parts that is regarded as a single entity; “how big is that part compared to the whole?”; “the team is a unit”
In the 16th century, Turkish women could divorce their husbands if the man failed to keep his family’s pot filled with coffee.