MADNESS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does madness mean? 

• MADNESS (noun)
  The noun MADNESS has 5 senses:

1. obsolete terms for legal insanity

2. an acute viral disease of the nervous system of warm-blooded animals (usually transmitted by the bite of a rabid animal); rabies is fatal if the virus reaches the brain

3. a feeling of intense anger

4. the quality of being rash and foolish

5. unrestrained excitement or enthusiasm

  Familiarity information: MADNESS used as a noun is common.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MADNESS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Obsolete terms for legal insanity

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

insaneness; lunacy; madness

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

insanity (relatively permanent disorder of the mind)

Derivation:

mad (affected with madness or insanity)

Sense 2

Meaning:

An acute viral disease of the nervous system of warm-blooded animals (usually transmitted by the bite of a rabid animal); rabies is fatal if the virus reaches the brain

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

hydrophobia; lyssa; madness; rabies

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

zoonosis; zoonotic disease (an animal disease that can be transmitted to humans)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A feeling of intense anger

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Synonyms:

fury; madness; rage

Context example:

his face turned red with rage

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

anger; choler; ire (a strong emotion; a feeling that is oriented toward some real or supposed grievance)

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

wrath (intense anger (usually on an epic scale))

lividity (a state of fury so great the face becomes discolored)

Derivation:

mad (roused to anger)

Sense 4

Meaning:

The quality of being rash and foolish

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

craziness; folly; foolishness; madness

Context example:

adjusting to an insane society is total foolishness

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

stupidity (a poor ability to understand or to profit from experience)

Derivation:

mad (very foolish)

Sense 5

Meaning:

Unrestrained excitement or enthusiasm

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

madness; rabidity; rabidness

Context example:

poetry is a sort of divine madness

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

ebullience; enthusiasm; exuberance (overflowing with eager enjoyment or approval)

Derivation:

mad (marked by uncontrolled excitement or emotion)

 Context examples 

This time he was aware that it was the club, but his madness knew no caution.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

"The philosophy of madness," was the retort.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

He has only two thousand pounds of his own; it would be madness to marry upon that, though for my own part, I could give up every prospect of more without a sigh.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Oh, my poor friend, in what moment of madness did you come to do such a deed?

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He knew well the psychology of the little thing, and it was the little things by which he kept the crew worked up to the verge of madness.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

I thought with a sensation of madness on my promise of creating another like to him, and trembling with passion, tore to pieces the thing on which I was engaged.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Carried away by the heat and madness of fight, the English knight never drew rein, but charged straight on into the array of the knights of Calatrava.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It was stark madness, perhaps, but in the very grip of Death he defied Death and refused to die.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

“I don’t think you need alarm yourself,” said I. “I have usually found that there was method in his madness.”

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

I seemed to wish to keep him to the point of his madness—a thing which I avoid with the patients as I would the mouth of hell.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)