Rage

How to spell rage

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce rage

What does rage mean?

1. nounViolent, uncontrollable anger.
2. verbTo feel or show violent anger, or to continue with great force.

Rage in a sentence

• noun

  His sudden rage frightened everyone in the office.

• verb

  The storm continued to rage along the coast all night.

• noun

  She felt a wave of rage when she read the unfair review.

• verb

  He began to rage at the customer service line for an hour.

Where does rage come from?

Language of origin: French

Rage entered English in the early 1300s from the Old French word rage, meaning 'madness' or 'fury', which descended from the Latin rabies, literally 'madness' or 'raving'. That same Latin rabies is the direct source of the modern disease name 'rabies', the condition that drives animals into a frenzy, so the link between the illness and the emotion is more than poetic. Over the centuries the word softened from describing literal insanity to meaning intense anger, and by extension a violent or stormy force, as when a fire or a storm is said to rage. A lighter sense also developed: a 'rage' for something became a passing craze or fashion that briefly seizes everyone. The spelling stays simple and phonetic, with the soft -ge ending giving the familiar 'j' sound, which is why it rarely trips up adult writers.

How the word is built

• rage (from Latin rabies: madness, fury), borrowed whole; no separable affixes