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Another word for insanity

Noun

  1. Serious mental illness or disorder impairing a person's capacity to function normally and safely

    2. See also:

    sane

  2. Foolish behavior

    3. See also:

    ability

© Roget’s II: The New Thesaurus Copyright © 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Synonym Study

  • Psychosis is the psychiatric term for any of various specialized mental disorders, functional or organic, in which the personality is seriously disorganized
  • Dementia is the general term for an acquired mental disorder, now generally one of organic origin, as distinguished from amentia (congenital mental deficiency)
  • Lunacy specifically suggests periodic spells of insanity, but is now most commonly used in its extended sense of extreme folly
  • Insanity , current in popular and legal language but not used technically in medicine, implies mental derangement in one who formerly had mental health
© WEBSTER’S NEW WORLD® ROGET’S A-Z THESAURUS by Charlton Laird and the editors of Webster’s New World dictionaries. Copyright © 1999 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Sentence Examples

  • The insanity of what she did was beyond his comprehension.

  • Pierre's insanity consisted in not waiting, as he used to do, to discover personal attributes which he termed "good qualities" in people before loving them; his heart was now overflowing with love, and by loving people without cause he discovered indubitable causes for loving them.

  • There are six more months of insanity to record in 1787.

  • A year later, the kings insanity being proved incurable, the regency was definitively established (February 1812).

  • The first attack upon the horrors of the slave-trade was made in 1788; and in the same year, in the debates on the Regency Bill caused by the kings insanity, Pitt defended against Fox the right of parliament to make provision for the exercise of the powers of the crown when the wearer was permanently or temporarily disabled from exercising his authority.

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Words that mention insanity in the Dictionary

Words near insanity in the Thesaurus