mad
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈmæd/
ipa: /ˈmæːd/
note: New York City, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Baltimore
ipa: /ˈmɛəd/
rhymes: -æd
Forms: form: madder
form: maddest
Etymology: From Middle English mad, madde, madd, medd, from Old English ġemǣd, ġemǣded (“enraged”), past participle of ġemǣdan, *mǣdan (“to make insane or foolish”), from Proto-Germanic *maidijaną (“to change; damage; cripple; injure; make mad”), from Proto-Germanic *maidaz ("weak; crippled"; compare Old English gemād (“silly, mad”), Old High German gimeit (“foolish, crazy”), literary German gemeit (“mad, insane”), Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐌼𐌰𐌹𐌸𐍃 (gamaiþs, “crippled”)), from Proto-Indo-European *mey- ("to change"; compare Old Irish máel (“bald, dull”), Old Lithuanian ap-maitinti (“to wound”), Sanskrit मेथति (méthati, “he hurts, comes to blows”)).
Senses: examples: text: You want to spend $1000 on a pair of shoes? Are you mad?
text: He's got this mad idea that he's irresistible to women.
text: I have heard my grandsire say full oft, / Extremity of griefs would make men mad.
ref: c. 1588–1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:
text: Sometimes, I feel sure he is as mad as a hatter; and then, just as he is at his maddest, I find there is method in his madness.
ref: 1920 October, Agatha Christie, “The Arrest”, in The Mysterious Affair at Styles […], New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, published March 1927, page 218:
text: Dr. Manuel: Is it madness to see the future? To see the destruction rushing towards us? To understand there is no escape? No hope? No, I am not mad. I'm the only sane one left!
ref: 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Eden Prime:
glosses: Insane; crazy, mentally deranged.
examples: text: Are you mad at me?
text: And I punished them oft in euery Synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme, and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them euen vnto strange cities.
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Acts 26:11:
text: She was so mad she wouldn't speak to me for quite a spell, but at last I coaxed her into going up to Miss Emmeline's room and fetching down a tintype of the missing Deacon man.
ref: 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VI, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
glosses: Angry, annoyed.
raw_tags: in UK and Ireland
examples: text: Wow, you really made this pie from scratch? I'm not mad at it.
text: I'm not mad at this little house, though.
ref: 2019, The Real Housewives of Atlanta, season 13, episode 3:
text: But I mean, once the flow was there, nobody was mad at it.
ref: 2019, “'Thank U' Text: Ariana Grande's Collaborators Break Down The Artist's Latest Album”, in NPR:
glosses: Used litotically to indicate satisfaction or approval.
raw_tags: in the negative
examples: text: It's mad that I got that job back a day after being fired.
glosses: Bizarre; incredible.
examples: text: to be mad with terror, lust, or hatred
text: It is the land of graven images, and they are mad upon their idols.
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Jeremiah 1:88:
text: My brother, quiet as a cat, seems perfectly contented with the internal feelings of his felicity. The Marquis, mad as a kitten, is all in motion to express it, from tongue to heel.
ref: 1787, R. Bage, The Fair Syrian, page 314:
text: […] at all, just a vast space of desert out in the saltlands of Nevada. It's serious dressing up, the maddest entertainment, craziest art, and at the end there's the burning of a huge effigy, stuffed with pyrotechnics 287.
ref: 2010 May 27, Judy Astley, Blowing It: a brilliantly funny, mad-cap novel guaranteed to make you laugh from bestselling author Judy Astley, Random House, →ISBN, page 287:
glosses: Wildly confused or excited.
glosses: Extremely foolish or unwise; irrational; imprudent.
examples: text: Aren't you just mad for that red dress?
text: Glenereegan is to be sold to the highest bidder to-day.[…]I'm tould - It's Pether Byrne that dhrives Bianconi's car that tould me - that a smalpeen of a Dublin attorney is mad for it.
ref: 1883 January 6, Nugent Robinson, Ave Maria - Volume 9 - Father Tom: A Story of Connemara, page 3:
glosses: Extremely enthusiastic about; crazy about; infatuated with; overcome with desire for.
raw_tags: with for or about
examples: text: a mad dog
glosses: Abnormally ferocious or furious; or, rabid, affected with rabies.
raw_tags: of animals
examples: text: I gotta give you mad props for scoring us those tickets.
 Their lead guitarist has mad skills.
 There are always mad girls at those parties.
qualifier: African-American Vernacular
glosses: Intensifier, signifying abundance or high quality of a thing; very, much or many.
glosses: Having impaired polarity.
raw_tags: of a compass needle
Synonyms: sense: slang: Intensifier, much
word: wicked
word: mighty
word: kinda
word: helluv
word: hella