Subscriber login


Forgot your password?

Library card login

Other

mad

Pronunciation: /mad/
Translate mad | into French | into German | into Italian | into Spanish
Definition of mad

adjective (madder, maddest)

  • 1chiefly British mentally ill; insane:he felt as if he were going mad
  • chiefly British (of behaviour or an idea) extremely foolish; not sensible:Antony’s mother told him he was mad to be leaving Dublin
  • in a frenzied mental or physical state:she pictured loved ones mad with anxiety about her it was a mad dash to get ready
  • informal very angry:don’t be mad at me
  • (of a dog) rabid.
  • 2 informal very enthusiastic about someone or something:he’s mad about football [in combination]:another myth is that Scorpios are sex-mad
  • British very exciting.

verb (mads, madding, madded)

[with object] archaic
  • make (someone) mad: had I but seen thy picture in this plight, it would have madded me

Phrases

go mad

informal allow oneself to get carried away by enthusiasm or excitement:let’s go mad and splash out

like mad

informal with great intensity, energy, or enthusiasm:I ran like mad

(as) mad as a hatter

informal completely insane: he’s indisputably a genius, but he’s also mad as a hatter
[with reference to Lewis Carroll's character the Mad Hatter in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), the allusion being to the effects of mercury poisoning from the use of mercurous nitrate in the manufacture of felt hats]

mad keen

British informal extremely enthusiastic: some men are mad keen on football

Origin:

Old English gemǣd(e)d 'maddened', participial form related to gemād 'mad', of Germanic origin

mad in other Oxford dictionaries

Definition of mad in the US English dictionary

Nearby words

  |  Cite

Word of the day

epithalamium

/ ˌɛpɪθəˈleɪmɪəm /
noun
a song or poem celebrating a marriage …