gestalt

See also: Gestalt

English

WOTD – 23 November 2009

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)

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.

   • 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!’”

Alternative forms

• Gestalt

Derived terms

• gestaltic
• gestalting
• gestaltism
• gestaltist
• gestalt psychology
• Gestalt therapy, gestalt therapy

Translations

collection of entities that creates a unified concept

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 格式塔 (zh) (géshìtǎ)

• Danish: gestalt c
• Finnish: olemus (fi)
• French: profil (fr) f, gestalt (fr) f
• German: Gestalt (de) f
• Indonesian: gestalt
• Japanese: ゲシュタルト (geshutaruto)
• Norwegian: (psychology) gestalt m
• Polish: postać (pl)
• Russian: гешта́льт (ru) m (geštálʹt)
• Swedish: gestalt (sv) c

Anagrams

• taglets

Indonesian

Etymology

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

Noun

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)

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.

Polish

Alternative forms

• Gestalt

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from German Gestalt. Doublet of kształt.

Pronunciation

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

Noun

gestalt m inan

1. (psychology) gestalt

Declension

Declension of gestalt

	singular	plural
nominative	gestalt	gestalty
genitive	gestaltu	gestaltów
dative	gestaltowi	gestaltom
accusative	gestalt	gestalty
instrumental	gestaltem	gestaltami
locative	gestalcie	gestaltach
vocative	gestalcie	gestalty

Further reading

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

Swedish

Etymology

Borrowed from German Gestalt. Attested since 1623.

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

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

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

Declension

Declension of gestalt

		nominative	genitive
singular	indefinite	gestalt	gestalts
	definite	gestalten	gestaltens
plural	indefinite	gestalter	gestalters
	definite	gestalterna	gestalternas

Related terms

• gestalta

See also

• figur

References

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