madness meaning and definition

MADNESS noun

Definition of madness (noun)

1. obsolete terms for legal insanity
   • synonyms: insaneness, lunacy
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
   • synonyms: hydrophobia, lyssa, rabies
3. a feeling of intense anger
   • "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned"; "his face turned red with rage"
   • synonyms: fury, rage
4. the quality of being rash and foolish
   • "trying to drive through a blizzard is the height of folly"; "adjusting to an insane society is total foolishness"
   • synonyms: craziness, folly, foolishness
5. unrestrained excitement or enthusiasm
   • "poetry is a sort of divine madness"
   • synonyms: rabidity, rabidness