madden

Etymology

It is formed from English mad + -en, with the verb-forming suffix.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} Mad goes back to Old English gemædde (“out of one's mind”).^[3] The earlier verb in this sense was simply mad, used from the 14th century.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Intransitive, to become mad: 1704, in Joseph Addison's translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, where it may mean to act like a madman.^[2] Etymonline dates the intransitive use from 1735.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The transitive sense, to make mad or drive into a frenzy or rage, follows in 1720,^[2] or 1726 in Merriam-Webster,^[5] and Etymonline dates it only from 1822.^[3] It later weakened to "irritate, annoy",^[2][4] and the present participle maddening came to mean "exasperating".^[4] Johnson (1755) entered both uses, transitive "to make mad" with a quotation from Thomson, and intransitive "to become mad; to act as mad".^[7] The intransitive use is obsolete in the OED, whose last record is from 1913,^[2] though Merriam-Webster and the Shorter Oxford still list it.^[5][4] In Scots and Yorkshire dialect the verb meant to anger, annoy or vex.^[8]

Timeline

• 14th century – the verb mad, to make or be mad.^[3]
• 1704 – intransitive, to become mad.^[2]
• 1720 – transitive, to make mad; to enrage.^[2]
• 1726 – Merriam-Webster's date for the transitive sense.^[5]
• 1755 – Johnson enters it as both transitive and intransitive.^[7]
• 1913 – last OED record of the intransitive sense.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make someone very angry; to infuriate or exasperate: The constant delays maddened the passengers.^[9][4][2]
2. To drive someone insane or into a frenzy: horses maddened by fear.^[5][2][4]
3. To become mad, or to act as if mad.^[5][4][9]

Word family

• maddening

Related words

• mad
• madness

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
8. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
9. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins