Word.ws English Dictionary

Stendhal syndrome

Stendhal syndrome noun: a psychosomatic disorder, with rapid heartbeat, dizziness, fainting, etc., when a person is exposed to an experience of great personal significance, particularly viewing artworks.

Noun

Stendhal syndrome (uncountable)

  1. A psychosomatic disorder, with rapid heartbeat, dizziness, fainting, etc., when a person is exposed to an experience of great personal significance, particularly viewing artworks.

Synonyms of Stendhal syndrome

Origin of Stendhal syndrome

Named after the 19th-century French author Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle), who described such an experience in his book Naples and Florence: A Journey from Milan to Reggio.

Questions about Stendhal syndrome

What does Stendhal syndrome mean?
Stendhal syndrome means a psychosomatic disorder, with rapid heartbeat, dizziness, fainting, etc., when a person is exposed to an experience of great personal significance, particularly viewing artworks.
What part of speech is Stendhal syndrome?
Stendhal syndrome is a noun.

Words near Stendhal syndrome in the dictionary

  1. stencilworks
  2. stend
  3. Stende
  4. Stender
  5. Stenders
  6. Stendhal syndrome
  7. Stendhalian
  8. stendo
  9. stends
  10. Stendy
  11. Stene

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Stendhal syndrome (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “Stendhal syndrome.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/stendhal_syndrome. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.