hysteria [E19th] In ancient times doctors (all male) regarded hysteria as a disease of women caused by a disturbance of the womb. In the early 19th-century English pathologists (also male) formed the English word from Greek hustera ‘uterus, womb’. Earlier terms for the condition had been hysteric [M17th] or hysterical passion, reflecting the same view, and the vapours [M17th].