1 in a state of extreme excitement, and crying, laughing, etc. in an uncontrolled way:
hysterical screams / laughter * a hysterical giggle * He became almost hysterical when I told him. * Let's not get hysterical. * (disapproving) He thought I was being a hysterical female.
2 (informal) extremely funny:
She seemed to find my situation absolutely hysterical. * This book is hysterical.
HELPNOTE Some people use an instead of a before this word, and then usually do not pronounce the 'h'. This now sounds old-fashioned.
hysterically adverb:
to laugh / cry / scream / sob hysterically * hysterically funny
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
Where does this definition of hysterical come from?
This entry for hysterical is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is hysterical a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, hysterical is tagged as adjective.
Does hysterical appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — hysterical appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.