Definitions

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

  • adjective Wildly excited or active; frantic; frenzied.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Relating to or accompanied by mental disorder.
  • Frenzied; frantic.
  • Also spelled phrenetic, phrenetical.

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

  • adjective Distracted; mad; frantic; phrenetic.

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

  • adjective Fast, frantic, harried, or frenzied; having extreme enthusiasm or energy.
  • adjective obsolete Mentally deranged, insane.
  • adjective obsolete, medicine Characterised by manifestations of delirium or madness.
  • noun One who is frenetic.

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

  • adjective excessively agitated; distraught with fear or other violent emotion

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English frenetik, from Old French frenetique, from Latin phrenēticus, from Greek phrenītikos, from phrenītis, brain disease, from phrēn, mind; see gwhren- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French frenetike, from Latin phreneticus, from Ancient Greek *φρενητικός ("delirious"), from φρενῖτις ("delirium"), from φρήν ("mind"). Compare frantic.

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Examples

Comments

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  • I can think of no other word to describe the pace of street life in Buenos Aires. In my more evil moments I like to fantasize about the fate of your average Granadine pedestrian transplanted to the killer sidewalks of B.A. They would be trampled underfoot in a matter of seconds. Which is, frankly, all that they would deserve.

    September 3, 2009

  • I once was in a position to interview professional organists.

    For an audition piece, I chose Charles-Marie Widor’s “Toccata”

    (from Symphony No. 5 in F Minor, Op. 42 No. 1, for

    those who care about such things), a frenetic piece that

    sounded suitably difficult to my amateur ears.

    March 24, 2011

  • His frenetic, freewheeling approach is the antithesis of a rehearsed TED talk.

    January 18, 2018