gestalt
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See also: Gestalt
English
Etymology
Borrowed from German Gestalt (“shape, figure, form”).
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /ɡəˈʃtælt/, /ɡəˈʃtɑːlt/, /-ˈst-/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
- (US) IPA(key): /ɡəˈʃtɔlt/, /ɡəˈstɔlt/
Noun
gestalt (plural gestalts or gestalten)
- A collection of physical, biological, psychological or symbolic elements that creates a whole, unified concept or pattern which is other than the sum of its parts, due to the relationships between the parts (of a character, personality, entity, or being)
- This biography is the first one to consider fully the writer's gestalt.
- 1980, George Lakoff, Mark Johnson, chapter 15, in Metaphors We Live By:
- Thus one activity, talking, is understood in terms of another, physical fighting. Structuring our experience in terms of such multidimensional gestalts is what makes our experience coherent.
- 1996, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, The Origins of Grammar, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press:
- ... depending on the kinds of speech children hear directed to them, they may first learn unanalyzed "gestalts" (e.g., social expressions like "What's that?" uttered as a single unit) instead of learning single words that are then freely recombined ...
- 2008, Jonathan Nasaw, Fear Itself:
- Obviously it was related to the entire gestalt of Simon's polyphobia and compensatory counterphobia. The boys used to watch horror movies on late-night television […]
- 1977, John L. Hess, Karen Hess, The Taste of America, New York: Grossman:
- Mary did not approve of the Eleanor gestalt. "I been to Woonsocket S.D., Eleanor McGovern's hometown," she said, "and nobody there? I mean nobody? dresses like that."
- 1998, David Foster Wallace, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, 1st Back Bay edition, Boston: Little, Brown and Co.:
- So different were our appearances and approaches and general gestalts that we had something of an epic rivalry from '74 through '77.
Alternative forms
Derived terms
Derived terms
Translations
collection of entities that creates a unified concept
Anagrams
Indonesian
Etymology
Unadapted borrowing from German Gestalt (“shape, figure, form”).
Noun
gestalt (first-person possessive gestaltku, second-person possessive gestaltmu, third-person possessive gestaltnya)
- (psychology) gestalt: a collection of physical, biological, psychological or symbolic elements that creates a whole, unified concept or pattern which is other than the sum of its parts, due to the relationships between the parts (of a character, personality, entity, or being)
Further reading
- “gestalt” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.
Swedish
Etymology
Borrowed from German Gestalt. Attested since 1623.
Pronunciation
Audio: (file)
Noun
gestalt c
- a figure ((shape of a) being, especially a human or human-like being)
- de centrala gestalterna i berättelsen
- the central figures (characters) in the story
- en lång gestalt skymtade i dimman
- a tall figure could be seen through the mist
- (more rarely, somewhat poetic) a shape, a form (more generally)
- a gestalt (a whole different from the sum of its parts)
Usage notes
More everyday-sounding compared to English gestalt in (sense 1), matching figure in tone as well.
Declension
Declension of gestalt