Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

stockholm syndrome

Word Rarity Rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.63 in modern English

Syllables: stock-holm syn-drome
IPA

34

Scrabble Score

17

Letters

3

Syllables

13

Unique Chars

Meaning

noun

A psychological condition in which a hostage emotionally bonds to their captor.

Uncountable

verb

To cause someone to become affected by Stockholm syndrome.

Informal; Transitive verb

Example Sentences

"You're suffering from what humans call Stockholm Syndrome: you have bonded with your captors."
"Natascha Kampusch, the 18 year old Austrian woman who escaped from her kidnapper last week after eight years in captivity,[…] is thought to be suffering from an extreme version of Stockholm syndrome, in which victims begin to associate and sympathise with their attackers."
"Today I tipped into full-blown Stockholm syndrome and decided to go into work on a Saturday off."
"The girls, it turns out, found the experience oddly positive, and not because they were brainwashed or Stockholm syndromed."
"Eventually, you Stockholm Syndromed yourself into believing that what happened to the Bills mattered to your life. Off the top of my head, I can still list more members of the 1990-93 Super Bowl-averse Bills than kids in my Grade 8 class."
"Britannia's is the best because they understand that a bunny is as much a feat of engineering as cooking. The quarter loaf of bread must, must be of the generic, mass-produced sort (not a farmhouse loaf, definitely not a milk bread, just standard unsliced white), with the light crust a dam wall holding in a reservoir of rich mutton curry that's Stockholm-syndroming massive potato halves, the sauce riveted with cloves and singing to the tune of ginger and curry leaves, the whole edible edifice capped with a dome built of the belly of the bread."

Etymology

Calque of Swedish Norrmalmstorgssyndrom. Named after the robbery of Kreditbanken at the Norrmalmstorg square in Stockholm, Sweden, in which the bank robbers held bank employees hostage from August 23 to August 28, 1973. Originally, this term was directly translated from Swedish Norrmalmstorgssyndromet as the Norrmalmstorg syndrome, but later Norrmalmstorg was replaced with Stockholm, a word far more commonly known outside Sweden.

Usage

Inflected Forms

Stockholm syndromes (present, singular) Stockholm syndroming (participle, present) Stockholm syndromed (participle, past) Stockholm syndromed (past)

Synonyms

capture-bonding Helsinki syndrome

Questions

What does stockholm syndrome mean?: A psychological condition in which a hostage emotionally bonds to their captor.
Where does stockholm syndrome come from?: Calque of Swedish Norrmalmstorgssyndrom. Named after the robbery of Kreditbanken at the Norrmalmstorg square in Stockholm, Sweden, in which the bank robbers held bank employees hostage from August 23 to August 28, 1973. Originally, this term was directly translated from Swedish Norrmalmstorgssyndromet as the Norrmalmstorg syndrome, but later Norrmalmstorg was replaced with Stockholm, a word far more commonly known outside Sweden.

How to pronounce stockholm syndrome

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