Word.ws English Dictionary

Tetris effect

Tetris effect noun: the effect of seeing hallucinatory images of a repetitive activity done earlier.

Noun

Tetris effect (plural not attested)

  1. (no plural) The effect of seeing hallucinatory images of a repetitive activity done earlier.

Origin of Tetris effect

From Tetris + effect, since players of the video game may find themselves thinking about fitting shapes together in the real world. The earliest known use of the term is in Jeffrey Goldsmith's article "This is Your Brain on Tetris", published in Wired in May 1994.

Questions about Tetris effect

What does Tetris effect mean?
Tetris effect means the effect of seeing hallucinatory images of a repetitive activity done earlier.
What part of speech is Tetris effect?
Tetris effect is a noun.

Words near Tetris effect in the dictionary

  1. tetrigids
  2. tetrinic acid
  3. tetriodide
  4. tetriodides
  5. tetris
  6. Tetris effect
  7. Tetris-like
  8. Tetrises
  9. Tetrislike
  10. tetrix
  11. Tetro

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Tetris effect (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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Cite this entry: “Tetris effect.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tetris_effect. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.