hysterically

American

[hi-ster-ik-lee] / hɪˈstɛr ɪk li /

adverb

in an unrestrained or uncontrolled way.

Whatever she’s thinking comes out her mouth, so the whole team was hysterically laughing at her commentary on our game films.
Keisha slid to the damp pavement in a heap and buried her face in her hands, sobbing hysterically.
in a way that is very funny.

My friend's daughter is hysterically paranoid about autoflush toilets, so we’re always on the lookout for a traditional toilet just in case.
stemming from or caused by conversion disorder.

A group of hysterically blind Cambodian women in California are the largest group of such people known in the world.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

Etymology

Origin of hysterically

hysterical ( def. ) + -ly

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

"They'd all be just laughing hysterically because all I'd done is rewritten another song," he said.

From BBC • Apr. 23, 2026

Other influencers were less composed, with France's Maeva Ghennam who, waving her passport around, told viewers she "screamed hysterically" when she heard a strike.

From Barron's • Mar. 1, 2026

George Atallah attended 16 consecutive Super Bowls when he was an executive at the NFL Players Association, and he laughed hysterically when he learned about this confluence of events.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 7, 2026

Elliotte smiled, Wyatt looked shocked and Bennett — then only 21 months old — simply sobbed hysterically.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 2, 2025

The dog ran upstairs, hysterically yelping to each door, at last realizing, as the house realized, that only silence was here.

From "The Martian Chronicles" by Ray Bradbury

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023