rage
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ɹeɪd͡ʒ/
rhymes: -eɪdʒ
Forms: form: rages
Etymology: From Middle English rage, from Anglo-Norman rage, from Late Latin rabia, from Classical Latin rabiēs (“anger, fury”). Doublet of rabies.
Displaced native Middle English wode, from Old English wōd ("madness, fury, rage"; compare Modern dialectal English wood (“mad, insane, furious, raging”)); and Middle English hotherte (“anger”), from Old English hātheort (“fury, anger, wrath, rage”).
Senses: examples: text: Heav'n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn'd, / Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman ſcorn'd.
ref: 1697, [William] Congreve, The Mourning Bride, a Tragedy. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, Act III, page 39:
text: They burned the old gun that used to stand in the dark corner up in the garret, close to the stuffed fox that always grinned so fiercely. Perhaps the reason why he seemed in such a ghastly rage was that he did not come by his death fairly. Otherwise his pelt would not have been so perfect. And why else was he put away up there out of sight?—and so magnificent a brush as he had too.
ref: 1879, R[ichard] J[efferies], chapter 1, in The Amateur Poacher, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], →OCLC:
text: […] rage is not only impotent by definition, it is the mode in which impotence becomes active in its last stage of final despair.
ref: 1963, Hannah Arendt, On Revolution, →ISBN, page 101:
glosses: Violent uncontrolled anger.
examples: text: Miniskirts were all the rage back then.
text: But the rage of travelling is a symptom of a deeper unsoundness affecting the whole intellectual action.
ref: 1841, Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance”, in Essays: First Series:
text: This rage for boulevardizing has destroyed the quaint, queer, pestilential streets of old Paris, through which it was our pleasure to wander many years since.
ref: 1864, Samuel Greatheed, Daniel Parken, Theophilus Williams, The Eclectic Review (volume 7? volume 120? page 130)
glosses: A current fashion or fad.
examples: text: That evening, Felix and Trish Homer invited me to the Sundancer for "a bit of a rage."
ref: 2013, Larry M. Edwards, Dare I Call It Murder?: A Memoir of Violent Loss, San Diego, C.A.: Wigeon Publishing, →ISBN, page 95:
synonyms: rager
glosses: An exciting and boisterous party.
examples: text: Tripp At Knight feels like a Carti homage, but while it certainly gestures towards the rage sound, Trippie’s imitation of Carti is largely rooted in 2019 rather than 2021.
ref: 2021 December 24, Vivian Medithi, “Playboi Carti 'Whole Lotta Red' Is The Sound Of 2021 Whether You Like It Or Not”, in HipHopDX, archived from the original on 25 Dec 2021:
text: The list of rappers affiliated with rage has exploded in the subsequent 18 months, and several seem poised to break out in 2023.
ref: 2023 February 3, Elias Leight, “These Rising Rappers Are Pushing Rage Music Into the Mainstream”, in Billboard, archived from the original on 19 Mar 2025:
text: OK produced the bulk of Jump Out, and the pair succeeded in crafting a sound that, while sonically linked to the forbearers of the underground — maximalist drums in the spirit of so-called “rage” rap along with melodic flourishes of early Playboi Carti — the Charlotte, North Carolina born producer manages to tread new terrain, constructing a sonic identity that feels deliriously right now.
ref: 2025 February 18, Jeff Ihaza, “Meet OsamaSon, an Architect for the Next Generation of Rap Music”, in Rolling Stone, archived from the original on 03 Apr 2025:
topics: entertainment
lifestyle
music
glosses: A subgenre of trap music originating in the United States in the 2020s, characterized by 808s and aggressive, distorted synths.
examples: text: And your true rights be termed a poet's rage
ref: 1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet XVII”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC:
text: in great rage of pain
ref: 1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “(please specify the page, or |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […], →OCLC:
text: convulsed with a rage of grief
ref: 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, chapter 6, in The Scarlet Letter, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC:
text: He appeased the rage of hunger with some scraps of broken meat.
ref: 1856 December, [Thomas Babington] Macaulay, “Samuel Johnson”, in T[homas] F[lower] E[llis], editor, The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, new edition, London: Longman, Green, Reader, & Dyer, published 1871, →OCLC:
glosses: Any vehement passion.
Synonyms: fury
ire
apoplexy
Derived terms: air rage
all the rage
black rage defense
blind rage
computer rage
dage
day of rage
Day of Rage
desk rage
fly into a rage
paradoxical rage reaction
pavement rage
rageaholic
ragebait
rage boner
rage clean
rage comic
rage farm
rageful
rage game
rageless
ragelike
ragequit
rage quit
rage quitter
rager
rage room
rage syndrome
ragetweet
ragey
road rage
roid rage
'roid rage
trolley rage
unrage
work rage
wrap rage