Word.ws English Dictionary

Wertherism

Wertherism noun: the kind of sentimentality depicted in The Sorrows of Young Werther (German: Die Leiden des jungen Werthers), an epistolary and loosely autobiographical novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, first published in 1774, with a theme of heartbreak leading to suicide.

Noun

Wertherism (uncountable)

  1. The kind of sentimentality depicted in The Sorrows of Young Werther (German: Die Leiden des jungen Werthers), an epistolary and loosely autobiographical novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, first published in 1774, with a theme of heartbreak leading to suicide.

Origin of Wertherism

From Werther + -ism.

Questions about Wertherism

What does Wertherism mean?
Wertherism means the kind of sentimentality depicted in The Sorrows of Young Werther (German: Die Leiden des jungen Werthers), an epistolary and loosely autobiographical novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, first published in 1774, with a theme of heartbreak leading to suicide.
What part of speech is Wertherism?
Wertherism is a noun.

Words near Wertherism in the dictionary

  1. Wertheims
  2. Werther
  3. Werther effect
  4. Werther effects
  5. Wertherian
  6. Wertherism
  7. Werthimer
  8. Werths
  9. Wertman
  10. Wertmans
  11. wertrational

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Wertherism (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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