hysterical

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   marked by excessive or uncontrollable emotion

   hysterical laughter

2. 2
   adj

   characterized by or arising from psychoneurotic hysteria

   during hysterical conditions various functions of the human body are disordered- Morris Fishbein

3. 3
   adj

   Of, or arising from hysteria.

   Henrietta gasped for breath; but she swallowed down the hysterical emotion, and signed with her hand for Walter to go on.

4. 4
   adj

   Provoking uncontrollable laughter.

   She was a fat, round little woman, richly apparelled in velvet and lace, […]; and the way she laughed, cackling like a hen, the way she talked to the waiters and the maid,[…]—all these unexpected phenomena impelled one to hysterical mirth, and made one class her with such immortally ludicrous types as Ally Sloper, the Widow Twankey, or Miss Moucher.

5. 5
   adj

   Having, or prone to having hysterics.

Etymology

From hysteric + -al, from Latin hystericus, from Ancient Greek ὑστερικός (husterikós, “suffering in the womb, hysterical”), from ῠ̔στέρᾱ (hŭstérā, “womb”).