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Definition 2024

premenstrual_syndrome

premenstrual syndrome

English

Noun

premenstrual syndrome ‎(uncountable)

The physical and psychological malaise experienced by many women between ovulation and the onset of menstruation; premenstrual tension.
- 1951: Edain McCoy, Celtic Women's Spirituality
  Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) takes a lot of bashing in the media. It is true that many women become more aggressive during this period, though they are rarely out of control...Therefore, any PMS symptoms that are perceived as unstable are due to the fact that women act more like men during this phase than at any other time in their cycles.
- 1969: Public Health Service publication no. 263, sect. 20, 1969
  In The Premenstrual Syndrome, Dr. Katherina Dalton summarizes many studies of behavior change that show a large portion of crimes (63 percent in an English study, 84 percent in a French) are not distributed evenly over time, but clustered in the premenstrual interval along with suicides, accidents, a decline in the quality of schoolwork, decline in intelligence test scores, visual acuity, and response speed.
- 2006: Kristen Brown, Nietzsche And Embodiment: Discerning Bodies and Non-Dualism
  The term "premenstrual syndrome" first emerged in 1953 when Dr. Katharina Dalton used it to describe the same symptoms delineated by Dr. Frank [who coined premenstrual tension in 1931].
- 2006: Geoffrey P Webb, Dietary Supplements And Functional Foods
  The physical symptoms of this premenstrual syndrome include bloating, weight gain, breast tenderness, abdominal discomfort, lethargy and headache whilst the psychological symptoms include anxiety, irritability, aggression and loss of control.

Usage notes

The term was coined in 1953 by Katharina Dalton, as the title of an academic paper, possibly because the previous term premenstrual tension appeared to imply consideration of psychological symptoms only, although this had not been intended.