gestalt

• Gestalt

Borrowed from German Gestalt (“shape, figure, form”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ɡəˈʃtælt/, /ɡəˈʃtɑːlt/, /-ˈst-/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /ɡəˈʃtɔlt/, /ɡəˈstɔlt/

gestalt (plural gestalts or gestalten)

1. 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).
   • 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."

   • 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 […]

   • 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.

   • 2003 August, Jay Kirk, “Watching the Detectives”, in Harpers Magazine‎^[1], volume 307, number 1839, page 61:

     The clusters of behavioral gestalten... the probability factors... the subtypes of crimes... the constellations of criminal subtypes...

   • 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 […]

   • 2025 March 6, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, quoting Bill Cassidy, “A Skeptical G.O.P. Senator Makes His Peace With Kennedy”, in The New York Times‎^[2], →ISSN:

     “He [Robert F. Kennedy Jr.] also said, ‘We’re making vaccinations available. We’re doing this for vaccination. We’re doing that for vaccination.’ So if you take the gestalt of it, the gestalt was, ‘Let’s get vaccinated!’”

• taglets

Unadapted borrowing from German Gestalt (“shape, figure, form”).

gestalt (plural gestalt-gestalt)

1. (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)

• “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.

• Gestalt

Unadapted borrowing from German Gestalt. Doublet of kształt.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡɛʂ.talt/
• Rhymes: -ɛʂtalt
• Syllabification: ges‧talt

gestalt m inan

1. (psychology) gestalt

• gestalt in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• gestalt in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Borrowed from German Gestalt. Attested since 1623.

• Audio:

  (file)

gestalt c

2. 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

3. (more rarely, somewhat poetic) a shape, a form (more generally)
4. a gestalt (a whole different from the sum of its parts)

More everyday-sounding compared to English gestalt in (sense 1), matching figure in tone as well.

• gestalta

• figur

• gestalt in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• gestalt in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• gestalt in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)