English Dictionary

MADHOUSE

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IPA (US): 

 Dictionary entry overview: What does madhouse mean? 

MADHOUSE (noun)
  The noun MADHOUSE has 1 sense:

1. pejorative terms for an insane asylumplay

  Familiarity information: MADHOUSE used as a noun is very rare.


 Dictionary entry details 


MADHOUSE (noun)


Sense 1

Meaning:

Pejorative terms for an insane asylum

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

Bedlam; booby hatch; crazy house; cuckoo's nest; funny farm; funny house; loony bin; madhouse; nut house; nuthouse; sanatorium; snake pit

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

asylum; insane asylum; institution; mental home; mental hospital; mental institution; psychiatric hospital (a hospital for mentally incompetent or unbalanced person)


 Context examples 


I opened the window and signed to the man not to notice, so he contented himself after looking the place over and making up his mind as to what kind of a place he had got to by saying: 'Lor' bless yer, sir, I wouldn't mind what was said to me in a bloomin' madhouse.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

They lived strange lives, these men, and they died strange deaths—some by their own hands, some as beggars, some in a debtor’s gaol, some, like the most brilliant of them all, in a madhouse in a foreign land.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)



 Learn English with... Proverbs 
"When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." (English proverb)

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"Send a wise man and don't advise him." (Arabic proverb)

"He who eats holy bread has to deserve it." (Corsican proverb)



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