gestalt

noun

ge·​stalt gə-ˈstält 

-ˈshtält,

-ˈstȯlt,

-ˈshtȯlt 

plural gestalts also gestalten gə-ˈstäl-tᵊn 

-ˈshtäl-,

-ˈstȯl-,

-ˈshtȯl-

: something that is made of many parts and yet is somehow more than or different from the combination of its parts

When he gets rolling, you're not responding to single jokes—it's the whole gestalt of the movie that's funny.

—Pauline Kael

broadly : the general quality or character of something

When new employees are recruited fresh out of college and can look forward to working for the same company for 40 years, it changes the gestalt of management.

—Brenton R. Schlender

… the Old Hollywood gestalt, where daughters adored and romanticized their charismatic, powerful, often unavailable fathers.

—Nora Johnson

Examples of gestalt in a Sentence

the gestalt of human consciousness

Recent Examples on the Web

To convey her heroine’s sophisticated gestalt, Meyers sends her to the Barefoot Contessa. —Molly Fischer, The New Yorker, 2 Sep. 2024

Pizza is the defining food of our country, the key to the American gestalt. —Tamar Adler, Vogue, 25 July 2024

Comparing and contrasting the characteristics of these planetary nurseries, including their density, age and chemical structure, is what will lead to that gestalt. —Phil Plait, Scientific American, 15 Mar. 2024

Anti-modernism is thus the basic gestalt of Catholicism in the modern era. —R. R. Reno, Foreign Affairs, 13 Nov. 2018

Word History

Etymology

German, literally, shape, form

First Known Use

1922, in the meaning defined above

Medical Definition

gestalt

noun

ge·​stalt gə-ˈs(h)tält  -ˈs(h)tȯlt 

plural gestalten -ᵊn  or gestalts

: a structure, arrangement, or pattern of physical, biological, or psychological phenomena so integrated as to constitute a functional unit with properties not derivable by summation of its parts