madness
noun
Simple meaning
The state of being mad.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
madnuhsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈmædnəs
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The state of being mad; insanity; mental disease.
The state of being angry.
The quality of being rash and foolish
Rash folly.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- General and technical use
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The state of being mad; insanity; mental disease.
Used this way, madness is a reasonably familiar word with a faintly unfavourable edge. It turns up most in medicine or healthcare contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Slightly negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Critical or judgemental
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Medicine/healthcare
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use madness
- “Poetry is a sort of divine madness.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: being mad
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.