gestalt
a configuration, pattern, or organized field having specific properties that cannot be derived from the summation of its component parts; a unified whole.
an instance or example of such a unified whole.
Origin of gestalt
1Words Nearby gestalt
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use gestalt in a sentence
The writer Lindy West, for example, has studied photos of fat women in the hope of “coaxing a gestalt shift from revulsion to admiration.”
Contemplating sex and other consequences of modern feminism | Megan Marz | October 29, 2021 | Washington PostWertheimer termed the fundamental principle of gestalt perception prägnanz, as the tendency to seek simplicity through recurrence, order, or symmetry.
In other words, I saw a mosaic, a gestalt—many pieces fusing to form a sum greater than the parts.
Not any specific feature of the series, but a sort of overall gestalt.
How ‘Battlestar Galactica,’ ‘Game of Thrones,’ and FanFiction Conquered Pop Culture | Arthur Chu | May 6, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTBut on Wednesday, here was the White House to remind you that an MC is more than the gestalt of his lyrics.
The GOP's Hypocrisy Over Rapper Common's White House Invite | Chris Lee | May 11, 2011 | THE DAILY BEAST
To address the whole gestalt of the ultimate daiquiri, we need to come at this from two angles.
"Dreaming of you, of course," he said to the flesh-clad skeleton behind the total gestalt Judy.
Warm | Robert SheckleyEverett and his Telempathetic gestalt have proved to be the equivalent of the world's largest survey sample.
Telempathy | Vance SimondsRight now I needed a gestalt of something whose whole would be a lot greater than the sum of its parts.
Jack of No Trades | Charles CottrellPerls transformed the gestalt psychologists' central idea so it would serve as a basis for his approach to psychotherapy.
When You Don't Know Where to Turn | Steven J. BartlettIf his action is successful, his gestalt is closed: the problem is resolved, and the motivation is fulfilled.
When You Don't Know Where to Turn | Steven J. Bartlett
British Dictionary definitions for Gestalt
/ (ɡəˈʃtælt) /
(sometimes not capital) a perceptual pattern or structure possessing qualities as a whole that cannot be described merely as a sum of its parts: See also Gestalt psychology
Origin of Gestalt
1Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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