DELIRIUM

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does delirium mean? 

• DELIRIUM (noun)
  The noun DELIRIUM has 2 senses:

1. state of violent mental agitation

2. a usually brief state of excitement and mental confusion often accompanied by hallucinations

  Familiarity information: DELIRIUM used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DELIRIUM (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

State of violent mental agitation

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

craze; delirium; frenzy; fury; hysteria

Hypernyms ("delirium" is a kind of...):

mania; manic disorder (a mood disorder; an affective disorder in which the victim tends to respond excessively and sometimes violently)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "delirium"):

nympholepsy (a frenzy of emotion; as for something unattainable)

epidemic hysertia; mass hysteria (a condition in which a large group of people exhibit the same state of violent mental agitation)

Derivation:

delirious (marked by uncontrolled excitement or emotion)

delirious (experiencing delirium)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A usually brief state of excitement and mental confusion often accompanied by hallucinations

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Hypernyms ("delirium" is a kind of...):

disturbance; folie; mental disorder; mental disturbance; psychological disorder ((psychiatry) a psychological disorder of thought or emotion; a more neutral term than mental illness)

 Context examples 

Delirium is a condition that features rapidly changing mental states.

(Delirium, NIH)

The memory impairment is not the result of a delirium or dementia.

(Amnestic Disorder Due to a General Medical Condition, NCI Thesaurus)

Hour after hour passed away in sleepless pain and delirium on Marianne's side, and in the most cruel anxiety on Elinor's, before Mr. Harris appeared.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

He can give no explanation of the young man’s last words, ‘The professor—it was she,’ but imagines that they were the outcome of delirium.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A little occasional talk about half-crowns, oysters, or any other extraneous subject produces a pleasing effect of delirium.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Its use was discontinued due to extreme side effects that included delirium, confusion, visual disturbances, hallucinations and violence; some evidence of long-term memory disorders and schizophrenia-like syndrome has been observed.

(Phencyclidine, NCI Thesaurus)

He endeavoured to soothe me as a nurse does a child and reverted to my tale as the effects of delirium.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Cognitive disorders including delirium, dementia, and other cognitive disorders.

(Organic Mental Disorder, NLM, Medical Subject Headings)

Sometimes I have thought that it was merely the wild talk of delirium, sometimes that it may have referred to some band of people, perhaps to these very gipsies in the plantation.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It was too wonderful to be anything but a delirium.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)