Word.ws English Dictionary

poltergeistism

poltergeistism noun: the supposed manifestation of the presence of one or more poltergeists, especially as involving physical objects which move or fly about without warning.

Noun

poltergeistism (uncountable)

  1. The supposed manifestation of the presence of one or more poltergeists, especially as involving physical objects which move or fly about without warning.
    • "Breakin' windows and such," Hall said; "reg'lar Mafficking night they 'ad last night. Put the wind up them all proper."
      "Poltergeistism!" I ejaculated.1920, E. H. Jones, The Road to En-Dor, John Lane (London), page 28
    • There are numerous records of poltergeists in the scientific and quasi-scientific literature of Europe and the U.S., although there is probably no case of poltergeistism anywhere that has been authenticated beyond reasonable doubt.1958 March 17, Robert Wallace, “House of Flying Objects”, in Life, page 55

Origin of poltergeistism

From poltergeist + -ism.

Questions about poltergeistism

What does poltergeistism mean?
Poltergeistism means the supposed manifestation of the presence of one or more poltergeists, especially as involving physical objects which move or fly about without warning.
What part of speech is poltergeistism?
Poltergeistism is a noun.

Words near poltergeistism in the dictionary

  1. Poltera
  2. poltergeese
  3. poltergeist
  4. poltergeister
  5. poltergeistic
  6. poltergeistism
  7. poltergeistlike
  8. poltergeists
  9. poltergeisty
  10. poltergoose
  11. poltfeet

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: poltergeistism (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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