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mad

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mad¹

  • /ˈmæd/
  • /ˈmæːd/ Australia, Southern England
  • /ˈmaːd/ Northumbria
  • /ˈmɛə̯d/

Rhymes with -æd

Where it comes from

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”)).

adjective madder · maddest

  1. UK Insane; crazy; mentally deranged. You want to spend a thousand pounds on a pair of shoes? Are you mad?

    Similar: 5150, bananas, barking, barking mad, fey, buggish, buggy, bughouse, barmy, batchy, batpoop, bats

  2. US, informal, in UK and Ireland Angry; annoyed. Are you mad at me?

    Similar: agitated, angry, annoyed, apoplectic, bad-tempered, berserk, big mad, blood-boiling, boiling mad, butthurt, cheesed off, choleric

  3. US, informal, in the negative Used litotically to indicate satisfaction or approval. Wow, you really made this pie from scratch? I'm not mad at it.
  4. Ireland, UK, informal Bizarre; incredible. It's mad that I got that job back a day after being fired.
  5. Extremely foolish or unwise; irrational; imprudent.
  6. Wildly confused or excited. to be mad with terror, lust, or hatred
  7. colloquial, usually, with for Extremely enthusiastic about; crazy about; infatuated with; overcome with desire for. Aren't you just mad for that red dress?
  8. of animals Abnormally ferocious or furious; or, rabid, affected with rabies. a mad dog
  9. New York, slang Intensifier, signifying abundance or high quality of a thing; very, much, excellent or many. 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.

    Similar: wicked, mighty, kinda, helluv, hella

  10. of a compass needle Having impaired polarity.

adverb

  1. Ireland, New York, UK, dialectal, not comparable, slang Intensifier; to a large degree; extremely; exceedingly; very; unbelievably. He was driving mad slow.

    Similar: hella, helluv, wicked

mad²

  • /ˈmæd/
  • /ˈmæːd/ Australia, Southern England
  • /ˈmaːd/ Northumbria
  • /ˈmɛə̯d/

Rhymes with -æd

Where it comes from

Inherited from Middle English madden. Compare Old English ġemǣdan.

verb mads · madding · madded

  1. intransitive, obsolete To be or become mad. The imperial Elizabetta gazed with surprise at the youthful and unpretending appearance of the little being that had set the world madding.
  2. Jamaica, US, colloquial To madden, to anger, to frustrate. This musick mads me, let it sound no more.

MAD³

noun MADs

  1. abbreviation, countable, initialism, uncountable Initialism of mutual assured destruction or mutually assured destruction [T]he only bombs anyone dropped—on Hiroshima and Nagasaki—were Uncle Sam's message to non-nuclear Japan. MAD was salvation. MAD was security. MAD was the way of life most of us grew up with, the prevailing logic of uneasy peace. So whatever became of our mad, mad world?
  2. abbreviation, countable, initialism, uncountable Initialism of magnetic anomaly detector
  3. abbreviation, countable, initialism, uncountable Initialism of mothers against decapentaplegic
  4. abbreviation, acronym, countable, uncountable Acronym of magnetically-arrested disc, a type of black hole accretion disc).
  5. abbreviation, countable, initialism, uncountable Initialism of mandibular advancement device

proper noun

  1. abbreviation, acronym Acronym of Michigan algorithm decoder, a programming language, a variant of ALGOL, developed in 1959 at the University of Michigan.

Mad⁴

proper noun

  1. A diminutive of the female given name Madeline (and its variants). Mad, your boyfriend did a really shitty thing. In response, you got rat-faced and kissed someone.

Mad⁵

noun

  1. abbreviation, acronym, uncountable Acronym of mothers against decapentaplegic

Thesaurus

Closest in meaning: crazy, insane, demented, unhinged, delirious, frantic, brainsick, harebrained, angry, foolish, huffy, sick, disturbed, sore, distracted, wild

Translations

Every language

adj insane

한국어미친 michin, 미치다 michida
日本語気が狂った ki-ga kurutta, 狂しい kuruoshii, 頭がおかしい atama-ga okashii
中文瘋狂 /疯狂 fēngkuáng, 瘋 /疯 fēng
हिन्दीपागल pāgal, उन्मद unmad, बावला bāvlā, बावरा bāvrā, विक्षिप्त vikṣipt
Portuguêslouco, maluco, doido
Françaisfou
Deutschwahnsinnig, verrückt, toll, irre, geisteskrank
Italianopazzo, folle, matto, insano
Ελληνικάτρελός trelós, παράφρονας paráfronas, φρενοβλαβής frenovlavís, μανιακός maniakós
Русскийсумасше́дший sumasšédšij, безу́мный bezúmnyj, бе́шеный béšenyj, душевнобольно́й duševnobolʹnój, невменя́емый nevmenjájemyj
Tiếng Việtđiên, cuồng
العربيةمَجْنُون majnūn
עבריתמְשֻׁגָּע meshugá', מְטֹרָף metoráf

adj angry

한국어화나다 hwanada
Portuguêsbravo, nervoso, irado
Françaisfâché, en colère
Deutschsauer, böse
Ελληνικάέξαλλος éxallos, εξοργισμένος exorgisménos, τρελός trelós

adj wanting intensely

Ελληνικάμανιακός maniakós, λυσσασμένος lyssasménos

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Cite this
MLA

"mad." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/mad. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

mad. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/mad

Chicago

"mad." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/mad.

BibTeX
@misc{mad_2026,
  title = {mad},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/mad},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}