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INSANE
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I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Afflicted with or characteristic of mental derangement
Example:
insane laughter
Classified under:
Similar:
raving mad; wild (talking or behaving irrationally)
psychotic (characteristic of or suffering from psychosis)
psychopathic; psychopathologic; psychopathological (suffering from an undiagnosed mental disorder)
paranoid (suffering from paranoia)
non compos mentis; of unsound mind (not of sound mind, memory, or understanding; in law, not competent to go to trial)
mentally ill; unsound; unstable (suffering from severe mental illness)
maniclike (resembling the mania of manic-depressive illness)
manic-depressive (suffering from a disorder characterized by alternating mania and depression)
maniac; maniacal (wildly disordered)
lunatic; moonstruck (insane and believed to be affected by the phases of the moon)
hebephrenic (suffering from a form of schizophrenia characterized by foolish mannerisms and senseless laughter along with delusions and regressive behavior)
fey; touched (slightly insane)
crazed; deranged; half-crazed (driven insane)
crackbrained; idiotic (insanely irresponsible)
certifiable; certified (fit to be certified as insane (and treated accordingly))
brainsick; crazy; demented; disturbed; mad; sick; unbalanced; unhinged (affected with madness or insanity)
around the bend; balmy; barmy; bats; batty; bonkers; buggy; cracked; crackers; daft; dotty; fruity; haywire; kookie; kooky; loco; loony; loopy; nuts; nutty; round the bend; wacky; whacky (informal or slang terms for mentally irregular)
schizophrenic (suffering from some form of schizophrenia)
screw-loose; screwy (not behaving normally)
Also:
unreasonable (not reasonable; not showing good judgment)
irrational (not consistent with or using reason)
Antonym:
sane (mentally healthy; free from mental disorder)
Derivation:
insaneness (obsolete terms for legal insanity)
insanity (relatively permanent disorder of the mind)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Very foolish
Example:
a completely mad scheme to build a bridge between two mountains
Synonyms:
harebrained; insane; mad
Classified under:
Similar:
foolish (devoid of good sense or judgment)
Context examples:
I was mad—insane.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
What the Admiralty was to me that day; what nonsense I made of our case in my mind, as I listened to it; how I saw DORA engraved upon the blade of the silver oar which they lay upon the table, as the emblem of that high jurisdiction; and how I felt when Mr. Spenlow went home without me (I had had an insane hope that he might take me back again), as if I were a mariner myself, and the ship to which I belonged had sailed away and left me on a desert island; I shall make no fruitless effort to describe.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Yes; I feel now that I was right when I adhered to principle and law, and scorned and crushed the insane promptings of a frenzied moment.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
The poor wretch was doubtless torturing himself, after the manner of the insane, with needless thoughts of pain.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
Yesterday a lady, who has been known as Mme. Henri Fournaye, occupying a small villa in the Rue Austerlitz, was reported to the authorities by her servants as being insane.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
That is all, the drunkenness of life, the stirring and crawling of the yeast, the babbling of the life that is insane with consciousness that it is alive.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
I was convinced that Mortimer Tregennis was the murderer; that for the sake of money, and with the idea, perhaps, that if the other members of his family were all insane he would be the sole guardian of their joint property, he had used the devil’s-foot powder upon them, driven two of them out of their senses, and killed his sister Brenda, the one human being whom I have ever loved or who has ever loved me.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
They have a worth—so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane—quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
And romantic it certainly was—the fog, like the grey shadow of infinite mystery, brooding over the whirling speck of earth; and men, mere motes of light and sparkle, cursed with an insane relish for work, riding their steeds of wood and steel through the heart of the mystery, groping their way blindly through the Unseen, and clamouring and clanging in confident speech the while their hearts are heavy with incertitude and fear.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
If he were insane, however, his was a very cool and collected insanity: I had never seen that handsome-featured face of his look more like chiselled marble than it did just now, as he put aside his snow-wet hair from his forehead and let the firelight shine free on his pale brow and cheek as pale, where it grieved me to discover the hollow trace of care or sorrow now so plainly graved.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
