amuck

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“
The fellow came down to Nettleton and ran amuck, the way they sometimes do.

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Definitions (12)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (4)

  1. adverb In a frenzy to do violence or kill: rioters running amuck in the streets.
  2. adverb In or into a jumbled or confused state: The plans went amuck.
  3. adverb In or into an uncontrolled state or a state of extreme activity: "This jam-packed area of Honolulu has come to stand for tourist development run amok” (Ila Stanger).
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Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

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Examples (50)

  • Her destiny had definitely run amuck, and all because she was falling in love with the wrong man. —  Garwood, Julie - Rose 2 - One Pink Rose
  • But Simon is beholden to neither right nor left in this tale of Hollywood chic run amuck, as he talks out of school about his adventures with, among many others, Richard Pryor, Warren Beatty, Timothy Leary, Richard Dreyfuss, Woody Allen, and Julian Semyonov, the Soviet Union's version of Robert Ludlum and also a KGB colonel who tempted Simon to join the KGB himself. —  Encounter Books
  • Some see Plurality 2.0 as political correctness gone amuck -- every man, woman, and child for one's self. —  Presbyterian Bloggers
  • An alternately blistering and chilling portrait of hedonism run amuck, the film is unmistakably about today. —  OBLIQUITY65
  • We let mobster banks run amuck, and now we are paying for it. —  News Dissector Blog
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Malay amok.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. First used in Portuguese form, amouco, amuco, as a noun, a frenzied Malay; afterward amuck, amock, amok, almost exclusively in the phrase run amuck; from Malay amoq, adjective, “engaging furiously in battle, attacking with desperate resolution, rushing in a state of frenzy to the commission of indiscriminate murder: applied to any animal in a state of vicious rage” (Marsden, Malay Dict.).
 

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/əˈmək/
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