| / English Dictionary |
MADNESS
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Unrestrained excitement or enthusiasm
Example:
poetry is a sort of divine madness
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Hypernyms ("madness" is a kind of...):
ebullience; enthusiasm; exuberance (overflowing with eager enjoyment or approval)
Derivation:
mad (marked by uncontrolled excitement or emotion)
Sense 2
Meaning:
The quality of being rash and foolish
Example:
adjusting to an insane society is total foolishness
Synonyms:
craziness; folly; foolishness; madness
Classified under:
Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents
Hypernyms ("madness" is a kind of...):
stupidity (a poor ability to understand or to profit from experience)
Derivation:
mad (very foolish)
Sense 3
Meaning:
A feeling of intense anger
Example:
his face turned red with rage
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Nouns denoting feelings and emotions
Hypernyms ("madness" is a kind of...):
anger; choler; ire (a strong emotion; a feeling that is oriented toward some real or supposed grievance)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "madness"):
wrath (intense anger (usually on an epic scale))
lividity (a state of fury so great the face becomes discolored)
Derivation:
mad (roused to anger)
Sense 4
Meaning:
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
Synonyms:
hydrophobia; lyssa; madness; rabies
Classified under:
Nouns denoting stable states of affairs
Hypernyms ("madness" is a kind of...):
zoonosis; zoonotic disease (an animal disease that can be transmitted to humans)
Sense 5
Meaning:
Obsolete terms for legal insanity
Synonyms:
insaneness; lunacy; madness
Classified under:
Nouns denoting stable states of affairs
Hypernyms ("madness" is a kind of...):
insanity (relatively permanent disorder of the mind)
Derivation:
mad (affected with madness or insanity)
Context examples:
But what is a dog to know in its consciousness of madness?
(White Fang, by Jack London)
No; that is madness indeed; absolute madness.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
What blindness, what madness, had led her on!
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
Surely because there is some connection between three things—the burning, the stuffy atmosphere, and, finally, the madness or death of those unfortunate people.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Lord John, I trust that you will not countenance such madness?
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
“I thought it was madness,” he said, as he replaced the obnoxious paper in the safe, “and now I begin to fear it is disgrace.”
(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
No delusion—no madness: your mind, sir, is too strong for delusion, your health too sound for frenzy.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
And a queer madness, too.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
There he had seen everything to exalt in his estimation the woman he had lost; and there begun to deplore the pride, the folly, the madness of resentment, which had kept him from trying to regain her when thrown in his way.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
Of all the problems which have been submitted to my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, for solution during the years of our intimacy, there were only two which I was the means of introducing to his notice—that of Mr. Hatherley’s thumb, and that of Colonel Warburton’s madness.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
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