Definitions

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

  • adjective Angry; resentful: synonym: angry.
  • adjective Mentally deranged.
  • adjective Characteristic of mental derangement.
  • adjective Temporarily or apparently deranged by violent sensations, emotions, or ideas.
  • adjective Lacking restraint or reason; foolish.
  • adjective Feeling or showing strong liking or enthusiasm.
  • adjective Marked by a lack of restraint, especially by extreme excitement, confusion, or agitation.
  • adjective Exhibiting uncharacteristic aggressiveness, especially as a result of rabies, spongiform encephalopathy, or another neurological disease. Used of animals.
  • adjective Excellent; wonderful.
  • adjective Abundant; great.
  • transitive & intransitive verb To make or become mad; madden.
  • adverb Extremely; very.
  • idiom (like mad) Wildly; impetuously.
  • idiom (like mad) To an intense degree or great extent.
  • idiom (hatter/March hare) Crazy; mentally deranged.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Madness; intoxication.
  • noun A maggot or grub.
  • To make mad or furious; distract; enrage; madden.
  • To be mad; go mad.
  • To rage; fight madly.
  • noun An obsolete form of made, past participle of make.
  • Abbreviations of Madam.
  • Disordered in intellect; demented; crazy; insane: said of persons.
  • Furious from disease or other cause; enraged; rabid: said of animals: as, a mad dog; a mad bull.
  • Under the influence of some uncontrollable emotion.
  • Wildly or recklessly frolicsome: said of persons or of their acts.
  • Excited with immoderate curiosity, longing, admiration, or devotion; infatuated.
  • Proceeding from or indicating frenzy; prompted by infatuation or fury.
  • Synonyms Deranged, delirious, frenzied, raging.
  • 3 . Exasperated.

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

  • p. p. of made.
  • intransitive verb Archaic To be mad; to go mad; to rave. See madding.
  • transitive verb To make mad or furious; to madden.
  • noun (Zoöl.) An earthworm.
  • adjective Disordered in intellect; crazy; insane.
  • adjective Excited beyond self-control or the restraint of reason; inflamed by violent or uncontrollable desire, passion, or appetite
  • adjective Proceeding from, or indicating, madness; expressing distraction; prompted by infatuation, fury, or extreme rashness.
  • adjective Extravagant; immoderate.
  • adjective Furious with rage, terror, or disease; -- said of the lower animals; ; esp., having hydrophobia; rabid.
  • adjective colloq. Angry; out of patience; vexed.
  • adjective colloq. Having impaired polarity; -- applied to a compass needle.
  • adjective like a mad person; in a furious manner.
  • adjective To run wildly about under the influence of hydrophobia; to become affected with hydrophobia.
  • adjective to pursue under the influence of infatuation or immoderate desire.

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

  • adjective Insane; crazy, mentally deranged.
  • adjective chiefly US; UK dated + regional Angry, annoyed.
  • adjective Wildly confused or excited.

Etymologies

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

[Middle English, mentally deranged, rabid, angry, from Old English gemǣdde, past participle of *gemǣdan, to derange mentally, madden, from gemād, mentally deranged; see mei- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English medd, madd, from Old English gemǣd ("enraged"), from gemād ("silly, mad"), from Proto-Germanic *maidaz (compare Old High German gimeit ("foolish, crazy"), Gothic gamaiþs ("crippled")), past participle of *maidijanan (“to cripple, injure”), from Proto-Indo-European *mei (“to change”) (compare Old Irish máel ("bald, dull"), Old Lithuanian ap-maitinti ("to wound"), Sanskrit  (méthati, "he hurts, comes to blows")).

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Examples

  • Accordingly it fell to my lot to assume the appearance of madness, which made greatly for my purpose, as they consider mad men to be holy, and they therefore allowed me to go much more at large than before, until such time as the hermits might determine whether I were _holy mad_, or raging mad, as shall be shewn hereafter.

    A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 07 Robert Kerr 1784

  • The Whittaker family has their secrets and it all goes back to Whittakerville; where, by some mad twist of fate, Anna and the ´mad Indian´ see a drastic change in personalities.

    American Chronicle 2009

  • "But believe me, Norma, your money makes a very different sort of thing possible now, and you would be mad -- you would be _mad_!

    The Beloved Woman Kathleen Thompson Norris 1923

  • IV. iii.27 (490,2) and he, she lov'd, prov'd mad,/And did forsake her] I believe that _mad_ only signifies _wild, frantick, uncertain_.

    Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies Samuel Johnson 1746

  • In donning the Reverends mantle, I have retained the use of the term mad for Bethlems residents.

    Bedlam Catharine Arnold 2008

  • The term mad is not intended to cause offence, but to reflect the generic use of the word, reserving explicit clinical terms for the appropriate context.

    Bedlam Catharine Arnold 2008

  • The term mad is not intended to cause offence, but to reflect the generic use of the word, reserving explicit clinical terms for the appropriate context.

    Bedlam Catharine Arnold 2008

  • In donning the Reverends mantle, I have retained the use of the term mad for Bethlems residents.

    Bedlam Catharine Arnold 2008

  • In donning the Reverends mantle, I have retained the use of the term mad for Bethlems residents.

    Bedlam Catharine Arnold 2008

  • The term mad is not intended to cause offence, but to reflect the generic use of the word, reserving explicit clinical terms for the appropriate context.

    Bedlam Catharine Arnold 2008

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