Tarantism
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 An extreme urge to dance, popularly thought to have been caused by the bite of a tarantula (Lycosa tarantula) and prevalent in southern Italy in the 15th through 17th centuries. uncountable, usually
"This dancing mania or tarantism prevailed during the whole of the 17th century — and Baglivi, one of the best physicians of that time, made it the subject of a dissertation. He supports his history of the symptoms by the testimony of his father, […]"
- 2 a nervous disorder characterized by an uncontrollable impulse to dance; popularly attributed to bite of the southern European tarantula or wolf spider wordnet
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"This dancing mania or tarantism prevailed during the whole of the 17th century — and Baglivi, one of the best physicians of that time, made it the subject of a dissertation. He supports his history of the symptoms by the testimony of his father, […]"
Etymology
From New Latin tarantismus + English -ism (suffix forming nouns of action, process, or result), from Old Italian Taranto (“seaport in southern Italy”) + Latin -ismus (“-ism”); see further at tarantula. The English word is cognate with French tarentisme, Italian tarantismo.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.