rabid

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin rabidus (“raging, furious, mad”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from rabiō (“to rave, be mad”) and the suffix -idus.^[2][7][8] In Latin the adjective was used of frenzied feelings and of mad dogs.^[2] The Latin verb is also the source of rabies and, through French, of rage.^[7][9][3] Klein compares a Sanskrit word for violence and derives both from Proto-Indo-European *rabh-, which he takes to be a secondary form of *labh- (“to take, seize”);^[7] Etymonline notes that some sources trace the family to *rebh- (“violent, impetuous”), also the source of Old English rabbian (“to rage”), but that de Vaan finds this uncertain.^[3] The OED compares Old French rabi (c. 1243), Catalan ràbid and Spanish rábido, and earlier English rabious and rabiate.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Furious, raging; wildly aggressive or violent: 1594, in George Chapman's The Shadow of Night.^[2][10] Barnhart dates it to about 1611, in Chapman's translation of the Iliad,^[5] and Etymonline to the 1610s.^[3]

Semantic evolution

From the general sense "raging", the word was applied from 1641 to feelings, passions and diseases that were unbridled, and to views that were extreme or fanatical.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as "fierce; furious; mad".^[11] From 1820, in Charles Lamb, it was used of a person holding an opinion or enthusiasm in an extreme form, the sense of a rabid supporter.^[2] The medical sense "affected with rabies" is dated by the OED, in its revision of 2008, to 1650;^[2] Barnhart and Etymonline give 1804,^[5][3] and Hoad places it in the 19th century.^[12] The sense "of or relating to rabies" (1733) is now rare.^[2]

Timeline

• 1594 – furious, raging, wildly violent.^[2][10] Barnhart dates it to about 1611.^[5]
• 1641 – of feelings or views: unbridled; extreme, fanatical.^[2]
• 1650 – affected with rabies.^[2] Barnhart and Etymonline date this sense to 1804.^[5][3]
• 1733 – of or relating to rabies.^[2]
• 1820 – of a person: holding an opinion or enthusiasm in an extreme form.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Holding a view or enthusiasm in an extreme or unreasonable form; fanatical, zealous: a rabid hockey supporter.^[13][10][2]
2. Affected with rabies: The farmer kept the children away from the rabid fox.^[13][10][2]
3. Extremely violent; furious or raging.^[13][10][2]
4. Of or relating to rabies (now rare).^[2][13]

Word family

• rabidity
• rabidly
• rabidness

Related words

• rabies
• rage

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r 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. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins