| / English Dictionary |
MAD
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
Irregular inflected forms: madded , madder , maddest , madding
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Roused to anger
Example:
sore over a remark
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Similar:
angry (feeling or showing anger)
Domain usage:
colloquialism (a colloquial expression; characteristic of spoken or written communication that seeks to imitate informal speech)
Derivation:
madness (a feeling of intense anger)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Affected with madness or insanity
Example:
a man who had gone mad
Synonyms:
brainsick; crazy; demented; disturbed; mad; sick; unbalanced; unhinged
Classified under:
Similar:
insane (afflicted with or characteristic of mental derangement)
Derivation:
madness (obsolete terms for legal insanity)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Marked by uncontrolled excitement or emotion
Example:
a mad whirl of pleasure
Synonyms:
delirious; excited; frantic; mad; unrestrained
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
wild (marked by extreme lack of restraint or control)
Derivation:
madness (unrestrained excitement or enthusiasm)
Sense 4
Meaning:
Very foolish
Example:
a completely mad scheme to build a bridge between two mountains
Synonyms:
harebrained; insane; mad
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
foolish (devoid of good sense or judgment)
Derivation:
madness (the quality of being rash and foolish)
Context examples:
His brows were drawn, his cheek flushed, and there was a mad sparkle in his eyes which spoke of a wild, untamable nature.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Why, here’s John Cummings of the Friars’ Oak Inn, as I’m a sinner, and seekin’ for a mad doctor, to judge by the look of him!
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
If we are lost, my mad schemes are the cause.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
Did this mad wife of his carry it off with her?
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
If ever a man was three parts mad with terror, that man’s name is Pinner.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
But the parson said, “Woman, thou art surely mad!”
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
The man went to the ground sidewise, leaped to his feet, and made a mad rush.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
I declare she talked to me once like something mad, or like a fiend—no child ever spoke or looked as she did; I was glad to get her away from the house.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Under the tutelage of the mad god, White Fang became a fiend.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
She looked instinctively at Lady Russell; but not from any mad idea of her recognising him so soon as she did herself.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
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