Vertigo is a specific type of dizziness where you feel like the world is spinning around you, even though you're standing perfectly still. It's the unsettling sensation that the room is rotating, tilting, or swaying when nothing is actually moving, different from feeling lightheaded or woozy.

People experience vertigo when something goes wrong with the parts of the inner ear that help us balance, or sometimes from problems in the brain that process balance information. You might get vertigo from spinning around in circles too many times and then stopping suddenly, though that usually passes quickly. Some people have medical conditions that cause severe, longer-lasting vertigo that makes it hard to walk or even stand up.

If you've ever climbed to the top of a tall building and felt dizzy looking down, you might have heard someone say they have “a fear of heights” or vertigo. Technically, that dizzy feeling from heights isn't true vertigo, but the word gets used that way so often that it's become an accepted meaning.