Mad

How to spell mad

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce mad

What does mad mean?

1. adjectiveFeeling or showing strong anger or annoyance.
2. adjectiveMentally unsound, or behaving in a wildly irrational way.

Mad in a sentence

• He was still mad about the parking ticket the next morning.

• The crowd went completely mad when the band came on stage.

• She got mad when the delivery arrived a week late.

• You would be mad to invest your savings in that scheme.

Where does mad come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word comes from Old English gemǣded, meaning 'made insane' or 'driven foolish', which was itself a past participle related to the older root gemǣd, describing someone whose mind had been turned. That root traces back to a Germanic source meaning 'crippled' or 'changed', the underlying idea being a mind altered from its sound state. Over the medieval period the word narrowed and strengthened to mean both 'insane' and, by extension, 'foolishly rash'. The familiar sense of 'angry' grew up later and became especially dominant in American usage, while British speakers long preferred 'angry' or 'cross' for that feeling. Because it is a short, native English word, its spelling has stayed remarkably plain and stable, with no silent letters or borrowed quirks to trip up a writer.

How the word is built

• mad (from Old English gemǣd: out of one's mind, foolish)