Madden

How to spell madden

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce madden

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does madden mean?

1. verbTo make someone extremely angry or irritated, or to drive them to distraction.

Madden in a sentence

• The constant delays on the motorway began to madden even the calmest commuters.

• Slow website loading times can madden customers who are trying to pay.

Where does madden come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This verb is built from the adjective 'mad' joined to the productive English suffix '-en', which turns an adjective into a verb meaning 'to make' or 'to become' something, the same pattern seen in 'harden', 'sweeten', and 'weaken'. The base word 'mad' descends from Old English 'gemǣd', meaning 'out of one's mind' or 'foolish', which traces back to a Germanic root for a damaged or crippled state. Over the centuries 'mad' broadened from simple insanity to take in furious anger, and especially in everyday American usage it now most often just means 'angry'. The verb 'madden' first appears in English around the 1700s with the sense 'to drive insane', then quickly extended to mean 'to enrage or provoke'. The spelling trap is the doubled 'd': because the stressed short vowel is followed by '-en', the consonant doubles, exactly as it does in 'sadden' and 'gladden'.

How the word is built

• mad (insane, angry)
• -en (verb-forming suffix meaning 'to make')