Frenzy

How to spell frenzy

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce frenzy

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does frenzy mean?

1. nounA state of wild, uncontrolled excitement or hectic activity.

Frenzy in a sentence

• The announcement of the layoffs sparked a frenzy of phone calls across the office.

• Shoppers worked themselves into a frenzy during the midnight sale.

Where does frenzy come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word traces back to the Greek phren, meaning 'mind' or, in the older medical sense, the diaphragm that ancient writers believed seated the emotions. From this came phrenitis, a term for 'inflammation of the brain' that supposedly produced wild delirium. The idea passed into Late Latin as phrenesis and frenesia, then into Old French as frenesie, where it described a fit of madness or raving. English took it up in the 1300s, at first meaning literal mental derangement before softening into today's sense of wild, uncontrolled excitement or activity. The same Greek phren survives in the modern words 'frenetic' and 'schizophrenia', and it explains why the spelling keeps that unexpected 'fren-' opening rather than the 'fran-' a speller might guess.

How the word is built

• frenz- (from Greek phren: mind)
• -y (noun suffix)