gestalt

noun

1. A collection of physical, biological, psychological or symbolic elements that creates a whole, unified concept or pattern which is other than the sum of its parts due to the relationships between the parts (of a character, personality, entity, or being).

   “Mary did not approve of the Eleanor gestalt. "I been to Woonsocket S.D., Eleanor McGovern's hometown," she said, "and nobody there? I mean nobody? dresses like that."”

   “Thus one activity, talking, is understood in terms of another, physical fighting. Structuring our experience in terms of such multidimensional gestalts is what makes our experience coherent.”

   “[…] depending on the kinds of speech children hear directed to them, they may first learn unanalyzed "gestalts" (e.g., social expressions like "What's that?" uttered as a single unit) instead of learning single words that are then freely recombined […]”

   “So different were our appearances and approaches and general gestalts that we had something of an epic rivalry from '74 through '77.”

   “The clusters of behavioral gestalten... the probability factors... the subtypes of crimes... the constellations of criminal subtypes...”

2. (alt-of)Alternative letter-case form of gestalt.