Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A physician who treats insane persons; an alienist.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • And where's horse-face Kerry and the mad-doctor Dean; champion of the antiwar throngs?

    Farewell to the Democratic Party 2005

  • As Doctor Parkes entered the chamber, another shout, or rather yell, thundered from the lips of this demoniac effigy; and the mad-doctor stood freezing with horror in the doorway, and yet exerting what remained to him of presence of mind, in the vain endeavor, in the flaring light of the candle, to catch and fix with his own practiced eye the gaze of the maniac.

    The Evil Guest 2003

  • Every mad-doctor knows cases in which there are what may be described as alternating consciousnesses with alternating memories.

    Real Ghost Stories William T. Stead

  • What if he were really being shadowed, not by a police agent but by a mad-doctor?

    The Bolted Door 1908

  • What if he were really being shadowed, not by a police agent but by a mad-doctor?

    The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton — Part 1 Edith Wharton 1899

  • He spent hours every day in his study, doing the work of a land agent and a political whip, reading piles of reports and newspapers and agricultural treatises; and emerging for lunch with piles of letters in his hand, and that odd puzzled look in his good healthy face, that deep gash between his eyebrows, which my friend the mad-doctor calls the _maniac-frown_.

    Hauntings Vernon Lee 1895

  • He spent hours every day in his study, doing the work of a land agent and a political whip, reading piles of reports and newspapers and agricultural treatises; and emerging for lunch with piles of letters in his hand, and that odd puzzled look in his good healthy face, that deep gash between his eyebrows, which my friend the mad-doctor calls the _maniac-frown_.

    A Phantom Lover Vernon Lee 1895

  • What would have become of the 'great neurologist,' the celebrated 'mad-doctor,' as they call me, if one of the few patients to whom I ever devoted my whole personal attention had committed suicide under my very eyes?

    Paul Patoff 1881

  • Many years ago a Scottish medical man, Dr. Clouston, a mad-doctor as they call him there, or what we should call an asylum physician (the most eminent one in Scotland), visited this country, and said something that has remained in my memory ever since.

    Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals William James 1876

  • But Dr. Yate-Westbury made no comment on this reticence; it was a familiar occurrence with him -- people are often ashamed to have it known they consult a mad-doctor.

    Michael's Crag Grant Allen 1873

Comments

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  • Cf. alienist.

    Visuals for this term are amusing, albeit incorrect.

    October 31, 2012