Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Suggestive of or afflicted with insanity: a maniacal frenzy.
- adj. Characterized by excessive enthusiasm or excitement: a maniacal interest in gambling.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Pertaining to madness; marked by or manifesting mania; insane; mad: as, a maniacal tendency; maniacal ravings.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Affected with, or characterized by, madness; maniac.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. wildly disordered
Etymologies
- maniac + -al (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Allred, who served 16 years in the House and four years in the Senate, said he was disturbed by the lawmakers self imposed cross over deadline and what he called a maniacal way to pass legislation.”
“This hostel in Eixample has also got immaculately clean dorms, comfortable beds with decent mattresses and reading lights, and what the owners term "maniacal attention to the soundtrack" witness the LP covers adorning the walls.”
“I used to frequent a certain maniacal toy site and noticed that several people there would go see whatever movie debuted that week EVERY WEEKEND.”
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“He was asked if he and the rest of the band would ever consider singing the national anthem before a Canadians game he's know as a maniacal fan.”
“Tears were streaming down his face and his expression was maniacal.”
“He's been called maniacal and he may now possess nuclear weapons.”
“He starts his questions with the word "notwithstanding", referring to the "maniacal" gestures Ed Balls has been making.”
“Hot and torpid, our thoughts revolve endlessly in a kind of maniacal abstraction, an abstraction so involuted, so dangerously valiant, that my own energies seem perilously close to exhaustion, to morbid termination.”
Poetic Machines 01 : Christian Bök : Harriet the Blog : The Poetry Foundation
“That kind of maniacal need for control is what will be the death of major labels.”
“Barthes investigates the emergence of writing as an intransitive activity, determined not by its object but by a "maniacal" urge in the author's body.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘maniacal’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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Bonkers
List for old and new terms and phrases meaning crazy, nuts, batty, prone to extreme nervousness, etc.
bonkers, crazy, nuts, batty, batchy, bats in the belfry, scatty, crackers, windy, gone crackers, cracked, dingo and 92 more...
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Quacksalvers et al. Nostrum
Bring forth the cathartic illumination on malignant,maniacal,medical,menage a trios and more egotists stymie
culpability, piousfraud, capacitous, rhabdomyolysis, scapula, idiosyncrasy, quiescent, malignant, nefarious, sociological, sociopath, pathogen and 202 more...
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Mentally irregular
Words for the mentally irregular
bonkers, unhinged, batshit crazy, cognitive dissonance, apophenia, undone, loony, unsound, deranged, a bit off the beam, daft, stark ravin' mad and 65 more...
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September Words-10031
During the month of September, post at least 10 new words to this list. Make sure you cite where you read the word (book/author/pg) and quote the context/sentence where you found it. If someone has...
pseudonym, Cacophony, Cannabis, Bogus, Soulless, via, celestial, Liquor, dwarf, Wretched, Gemini, quartz and 53 more...
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The insulting ones
ingrate, sycophant, inane, wanton, pompous, vitriolic, ghastly, cesspool, abhor, highfalutin, obsequious, insidious and 25 more...
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My favorite sounds
My favorite words to say.
ubiquitous, nightingale, silhouette, crevice, gloom, acquiesce, maniacal, plethora, serendipitous, oceanic, dollop
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The pretty ones
fiery, lithe, languorous, wax lyrical, resplendent, pithy, gossamer, loquacious, flummox, eschew, ardor, epiphany and 16 more...
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cindywrites's Words
chiaroscuro, mollycoddle, feckless, evocative, provocative, invocation, beckon, allay, becalm, console, lull, soothe and 479 more...
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cxfx's list
callipygous, scaphism, ubermorgen, handschuhschneeba..., farctate, autohagiography, autolatry, spindrift, feculent, verisimilitude, brobdingnagian, ineluctable and 205 more...
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Miss Sunshine
she's such a joy.
bereaved, bitter, cheerless, dejected, depressed, despairing, despondent, disconsolate, dismal, distressed, doleful, downcast and 405 more...
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old faves
ones I already liked
vacuole, organelle, debauchle, voluptuous, spry, cattywampus, obscure, occlude, occult, celtic, voracious, ardently and 133 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, M
metamerism, malady, margin, marauder, maverick, mercury, mirth, mandible, macerate, meteor, manumission, mica and 292 more...
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kmalladi's favorites
edification, penchant, ablution, extricate, frank, triumvirate, trifecta, egregious, hoi polloi, articulate, antediluvian, brusque and 291 more...
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JJMARLETTE's Words
phantasmagorical, antidisestablishm..., gargantuan, apocryphal, maim, disembowel, viscous, apothecary, seminal, exponential, googol, googolplex and 90 more...
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sionnach's Words
contumely, fomite, holmgang, poltroon, eleemosynary, obsidian, nugatory, grindcore, felch, recrudescent, pyx, parenteral and 3271 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for maniacal.
Rachel Slater It was Used in my writing class as an example.
A maniacal laugh esacped his lips.
maniacal:characteristic of or befitting a maniac Oct 4, 2010
nahiku888 a descriptive for traffic in certain countries Jun 21, 2009