Word.ws English Dictionary

culture shock

US/ˈkʰʌlt͡ʃʰɚ ʃɑːk/

culture shock noun: a state of anxious confusion experienced by someone exposed to an alien or unfamiliar environment.

Noun

culture shock (countable and uncountable, plural culture shocks)

  1. A state of anxious confusion experienced by someone exposed to an alien or unfamiliar environment.
    • Having grown up in rural Arkansas, I experienced tremendous culture shock on moving to Harlem.
    • I went through another, reverse culture shock when I got back to Israel and the efort ^([sic]) required to change from cherished and catered-to visitor to an ordinary working woman kept me away from my typewriter jor ^([sic]) months.1982 December 4, Ilana Weinstock, “Letters From My Aunt”, in Gay Community News, volume 10, number 20, page 4

culture shock meaning in Arabic, Malay and Vietnamese

culture shock in Arabic

state of anxious confusion
صَدْمَة ثَقَافِيَّة ṣadma ṯaqāfiyya

culture shock in Malay

state of anxious confusion
kejutan budaya

culture shock in Vietnamese

state of anxious confusion
sốc văn hoá

Forms of culture shock

pluralculture shocks

Origin of culture shock

From the earlier form cultural shock.

Questions about culture shock

What does culture shock mean?
Culture shock means a state of anxious confusion experienced by someone exposed to an alien or unfamiliar environment.
What is culture shock in Arabic?
Culture shock in Arabic is صَدْمَة ثَقَافِيَّة (ṣadma ṯaqāfiyya). See Culture shock meaning in Arabic.
What part of speech is culture shock?
Culture shock is a noun.
How do you pronounce culture shock?
Culture shock is pronounced /ˈkʰʌlt͡ʃʰɚ ʃɑːk/ (US).
What is the plural of culture shock?
The plural of culture shock is culture shocks.

Words near culture shock in the dictionary

  1. culture maker
  2. culture makers
  3. culture media
  4. culture medium
  5. culture of death
  6. culture shock
  7. culture shocks
  8. culture victories
  9. culture victory
  10. culture vulture
  11. culture vultures

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: culture shock (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-culture shock.wav.

Cite this entry: “culture shock.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/culture_shock. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.