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gestalt

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See also: Gestalt

English

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WOTD – 23 November 2009
English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

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  • (UK) IPA(key): /ɡəˈʃtælt/, /ɡəˈʃtɑːlt/, /-ˈst-/
  • (US) IPA(key): /ɡəˈʃtɔlt/, /ɡəˈstɔlt/

Noun

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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)
    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 ...
    • 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 […]
    • 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

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Derived terms

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Derived terms

Translations

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Anagrams

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Indonesian

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Indonesian Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia id

Etymology

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

Noun

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gestalt (first-person possessive gestaltku, second-person possessive gestaltmu, third-person possessive gestaltnya)

  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)

Further reading

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Swedish

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Etymology

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Borrowed from German Gestalt. Attested since 1623.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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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)

Usage notes

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

Declension

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Declension of gestalt
nominative genitive
singular indefinite gestalt gestalts
definite gestalten gestaltens
plural indefinite gestalter gestalters
definite gestalterna gestalternas
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See also

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References

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