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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. adj. Angry; resentful. See Synonyms at angry.
  2. adj. Suffering from a disorder of the mind; insane.
  3. adj. Temporarily or apparently deranged by violent sensations, emotions, or ideas: mad with jealousy.
  4. adj. Lacking restraint or reason; foolish: I was mad to have hired her in the first place.
  5. adj. Feeling or showing strong liking or enthusiasm: mad about sports.
  6. adj. Marked by extreme excitement, confusion, or agitation; frantic: a mad scramble for the bus.
  7. adj. Boisterously gay; hilarious: had a mad time.
  8. adj. Affected by rabies; rabid.
  9. v. To make or become mad; madden.
  10. idiom. like mad Informal Wildly; impetuously: drove like mad.
  11. idiom. like mad Informal To an intense degree or great extent: worked like mad; snowing like mad.
  12. idiom. mad as a hatter Crazy; deranged.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. Disordered in intellect; demented; crazy; insane: said of persons.
  2. Furious from disease or other cause; enraged; rabid: said of animals: as, a mad dog; a mad bull.
  3. Under the influence of some uncontrollable emotion. Very angry; enraged; furious. [Now chiefly colloq.]
  4. Wildly or recklessly frolicsome: said of persons or of their acts.
  5. Excited with immoderate curiosity, longing, admiration, or devotion; infatuated.
  6. Proceeding from or indicating frenzy; prompted by infatuation or fury.
  7. Synonyms Deranged, delirious, frenzied, raging.
  8. 3 . Exasperated.
  9. n. Madness; intoxication.
  10. To make mad or furious; distract; enrage; madden.
  11. To be mad; go mad.
  12. To rage; fight madly.
  13. n. A maggot or grub.
  14. n. An obsolete form of made, past participle of make.
  15. Abbreviations of Madam.

Wiktionary

  1. adj. Insane; crazy, mentally deranged.
  2. adj. Angry, annoyed.
  3. adj. Wildly confused or excited.
  4. adj. Extremely foolish or unwise; irrational; imprudent.
  5. adj. Extremely enthusiastic about; crazy about; infatuated with; overcome with desire for.
  6. adj. abnormally ferocious or furious; or, rabid, affected with rabies.
  7. adj. Intensifier, signifies an abundance or high quality of a thing; much or many.
  8. adv. Intensifier; to a large degree; extremely; exceedingly; very; unbelievably.
  9. v. To madden, to anger, to frustrate.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. p. p. of made.
  2. adj. Disordered in intellect; crazy; insane.
  3. adj. Excited beyond self-control or the restraint of reason; inflamed by violent or uncontrollable desire, passion, or appetite
  4. adj. Proceeding from, or indicating, madness; expressing distraction; prompted by infatuation, fury, or extreme rashness.
  5. adj. Extravagant; immoderate.
  6. adj. Furious with rage, terror, or disease; -- said of the lower animals; ; esp., having hydrophobia; rabid.
  7. adj. Angry; out of patience; vexed.
  8. adj. Having impaired polarity; -- applied to a compass needle.
  9. v. To make mad or furious; to madden.
  10. v. To be mad; to go mad; to rave. See madding.
  11. n. An earthworm.

WordNet 3.0

  1. adj. very foolish
  2. adj. roused to anger
  3. adj. affected with madness or insanity
  4. adj. marked by uncontrolled excitement or emotion

Etymologies

  1. Middle English, from Old English gemǣdde, past participle of *gemǣdan, to madden, from gemād, insane; see mei-1 in Indo-European roots.

Examples

  • “Accordingly it fell to my lot to assume the appearance of madness, which made greatly for my purpose, as they consider mad men to be holy, and they therefore allowed me to go much more at large than before, until such time as the hermits might determine whether I were _holy mad_, or raging mad, as shall be shewn hereafter.”

    A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 07

  • “The Whittaker family has their secrets and it all goes back to Whittakerville; where, by some mad twist of fate, Anna and the ´mad Indian´ see a drastic change in personalities.”

    American Chronicle

  • “But believe me, Norma, your money makes a very different sort of thing possible now, and you would be mad -- you would be _mad_!”

    The Beloved Woman

  • “IV. iii.27 (490,2) and he, she lov'd, prov'd mad,/And did forsake her] I believe that _mad_ only signifies _wild, frantick, uncertain_.”

    Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies

  • “The term mad is not intended to cause offence, but to reflect the generic use of the word, reserving explicit clinical terms for the appropriate context.”

    Simon & Schuster: Bedlam

  • “In donning the Reverends mantle, I have retained the use of the term mad for Bethlems residents.”

    Simon & Schuster: Bedlam

  • “Prolonged exposure to the fumes released when the material was steamed for final shaping had dire effects on the nervous system, hence the expression "mad as a hatter.”

    The Wall Street Journal: The Beaver Wars

  • “W&H: I remember that my grandmother used the term mad money.”

    January 16, 2008

  • “It's been nearly 20 years since the world first heard the term mad cow disease.”

    CNN Transcript Feb 13, 2005

  • “But then, when people contracted the disease from eating tainted beef, the term mad cow would become a global, household word.”

    CNN Transcript Feb 13, 2005

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‘mad’ has been looked up 2631 times, loved by 2 people, added to 37 lists, commented on 2 times, and has a Scrabble score of 6.