Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The condition of being mentally deranged.
  • noun Great folly.
  • noun Enthusiasm; excitement.
  • noun Archaic Fury; rage.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The state of being mad or distracted; insanity; lunacy.
  • noun Headstrong passion or rashness; ungovernable fury or rage; extreme folly.
  • noun Synonyms Frenzy, Mania, etc. See insanity.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The condition of being mad; insanity; lunacy.
  • noun Frenzy; ungovernable rage.
  • noun Extreme folly.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The state of being mad; insanity; mental disease.
  • noun rash folly

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun obsolete terms for legal insanity
  • noun a feeling of intense anger
  • noun the quality of being rash and foolish
  • noun an acute viral disease of the nervous system of warm-blooded animals (usually transmitted by the bite of a rabid animal); rabies is fatal if the virus reaches the brain
  • noun unrestrained excitement or enthusiasm

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • III. ii.439 (293,5) [to a living humour of madness] If this be the true reading we must by _living_ understand _lasting_, or _permanent_, but I cannot forbear to think that some antithesis was intended which is now lost; perhaps the passage stood thus, _I drove my suitor from a_ dying _humour of love to a living humour of madness_.

    Notes to Shakespeare — Volume 01: Comedies Samuel Johnson 1746

  • The whole thing - coupled with the normal end of the term madness - makes me want to jump in the car and drive until I hit a major metropolitan area that has luxurious hotels and fabulous restaurants.

    martinimade 2009

  • He not only suffered a spectacular bout of what he called madness but also wrote an extraordinarily vivid account of it in his short novel The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold, which he freely admitted was a thinly disguised account of what had happened to him on a 1954 voyage to Ceylon to restore his health.

    Henry’s Demons Patrick Cockburn 2011

  • He not only suffered a spectacular bout of what he called madness but also wrote an extraordinarily vivid account of it in his short novel The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold, which he freely admitted was a thinly disguised account of what had happened to him on a 1954 voyage to Ceylon to restore his health.

    Henry’s Demons Patrick Cockburn 2011

  • This madness is accelerating and most recently the broader the political sweeps and swings, the larger the plant, the bigger the EU grant, the more irrational the H&S directives - so the faster we gather speed in our headlong surge toward the total annihilation of what used to look just right.

    Changing Down Peter Ashley 2008

  • There is method to my title madness *grin* Please bear with me.

    Your (You're) Joking orannia 2009

  • There is method to my title madness *grin* Please bear with me.

    Archive 2009-07-01 orannia 2009

  • One theory behind this madness is the World Baseball Classic has thrown off pitchers 'spring routines, which would account for some dead arms, while others are working to build their stamina.

    USATODAY.com - No time to panic yet 2006

  • This one is appropriately named Noah's Ark. And like the biblical sanctuary, they enter in twos, escaping what they call the madness outside.

    CNN Transcript Jun 19, 2006 2006

  • This one is appropriately named Noah's Ark. And like the biblical sanctuary, they enter in twos, escaping what they call the madness outside.

    CNN Transcript Jun 20, 2006 2006

Comments

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  • "I see now the virtue in madness, for this country knows no laws nor any boundary

    I pity the poor shades confined to the Euclidean prison that is sanity

    All things are possible here and I am what madness has made me

    Whole

    And complete

    And free at last."

    - Amadeus Arkham

    November 11, 2007

  • O rose beyond the reach of time and of the senses

    O kiss enveloped in the scarves of all the winds

    surprise me with one dream

    that my madness will recoil from you.

    - Mahmoud Darwish, 'Psalm 9'.

    September 16, 2008