HYSTERICS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does hysterics mean? 

• HYSTERICS (noun)
  The noun HYSTERICS has 1 sense:

1. an attack of hysteria

  Familiarity information: HYSTERICS used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• HYSTERICS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An attack of hysteria

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Hypernyms ("hysterics" is a kind of...):

attack (a sudden occurrence of an uncontrollable condition)

 Context examples 

My aunt, with one clap of her hands, and one look through her spectacles, immediately went into hysterics, for the first and only time in all my knowledge of her.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The moment we were alone in the carriage he gave way to a regular fit of hysterics.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

She could love, and hate, maybe have hysterics; and she could certainly be jealous, as she was jealous now, uttering her last sobs in his arms.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

When shown the body, she fell into violent hysterics and kept her bed for several days.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

My mother was in hysterics, and though I endeavoured to give her every assistance in my power, I am afraid I did not do so much as I might have done!

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

I'll buy you quarts if you want it, but for heaven's sake don't have hysterics, for I've brought Jack Scott home to dinner, and...

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Poor Fanny! she was in hysterics all yesterday.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

I came over at once to London, called in my own person at Baker Street, threw Mrs. Hudson into violent hysterics, and found that Mycroft had preserved my rooms and my papers exactly as they had always been.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Opening the window, I walked in upon them; liberated Celine from my protection; gave her notice to vacate her hotel; offered her a purse for immediate exigencies; disregarded screams, hysterics, prayers, protestations, convulsions; made an appointment with the vicomte for a meeting at the Bois de Boulogne.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

It was an afternoon of distress, and Anne had every thing to do at once; the apothecary to send for, the father to have pursued and informed, the mother to support and keep from hysterics, the servants to control, the youngest child to banish, and the poor suffering one to attend and soothe; besides sending, as soon as she recollected it, proper notice to the other house, which brought her an accession rather of frightened, enquiring companions, than of very useful assistants.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)