hysterics
noun

- uncontrolled laughter
- a fit of uncontrollable laughter or crying
- if someone is in hysterics or is having hysterics, they are in a state of uncontrolled excitement, anger, or panic

Cambridge Dictionary / Merriam-Webster /  Collins Dictionary

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ORIGIN

“Hysteric” and “hysterical” surfaced in English in the very early 1600s from the Latin hystericus, or “of the womb”, which in turn came from the Greek hysterikos, meaning either “of the womb” or “suffering in the womb”.

The medical Latin term “hysteria” was used to diagnose neuroses that were almost entirely specific to women—and that were believed to be caused by the uterus. Over the centuries, its perplexingly vast array of symptoms included heartburn, vertigo, headaches, choking, depression, poor attention span, jealousy, problems with the veins in the nose, anxiety, and death, among many others.

One of the earliest documented cases or “hysteria” in a group of people occurred during the Middle Ages, when a convent of French nuns all began meowing like cats and would do so together for hours at a time, until soldiers from the surrounding town threatened to intervene if they did not stop.

In a more informal sense, the adjective “hysterical” means “extremely funny”, a sense that arose in 1939, appearing shortly thereafter in novels such as The Walsh Girls (1943) and a 1959 autobiography by Vincent Price.

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NEVER ARRIVE LATE !!!

The pianist Oscar Levant was playing one evening when a woman arrived late and proceeded to distract the audience by walking directly down the center aisle:

“I stopped my performance of a Poulenc piece and began choreographing her walk by playing in time with her steps. She hesitated and slowed down—I slowed down. She stopped—I stopped. She hurried—I hurried.

By the time she reached her seat, the audience was IN HYSTERICS and the organizers in a state of wild confusion.”

(A similar tale is told of Felix Mendelssohn.)

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A GIGGLE A DAY KEEPS THE DOCTOR AWAY

A 15-year follow-up study of “Sense of Humor and Causes of Mortality” found that people with a strong sense of humor outlived those who didn’t laugh as much.

The Nord-Trøndelag Health Study

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SYNONYMS

laughing, in convulsions/fits/stitches, hooting, howling, bellows/fits/gales/outbursts/peals/paroxysms/screams of (uncontrollable) laughter, chuckling, giggling, guffawing, chortling, tittering, hilarity, HYSTERICS, horselaughing, gurgling/hooting/roaring/shrieking with laughter, belly laugh, crack-up, heehaw, teehee, howler, good one, cries of mirth, sidesplitter/riot/rib-tickler/thigh-slapper

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SMUGGLE OWAD into a conversation today, say something like:

“We were IN HYSTERICS at the joke he told at the beginning of the meeting!”

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HERZLICHEN DANK to all readers helping me keep OWAD alive with single or monthly donations at:

https://donorbox.org/please-become-a-friend-of-owad-de

Paul Smith