madnessn.

c1384 Bible (Wycliffite, E.V.) (Douce 369(2)) Hosea ix. 7 Yrael, wite thou thee a fool, a wood prophete..for the multitude of thi wickidnesse, and multitude of madnesse.

1447 O. Bokenham Lives of Saints (Arun.) (1938) 4856 Fabrycius..was nere out hys mynde, And in hys madnesse a newe torment dede feyne.

1560 J. Daus tr. J. Sleidane Commentaries f. ccclxviij What madnes were this, with his own mony..to maintaine the force of his aduersarye.

1697 J. Dryden tr. Virgil Georgics iv, in tr. Virgil Wks. 141 What madness cou'd provoke A Mortal Man t'invade a sleeping God? View more context for this quotation

1721 R. Keith tr. Thomas à Kempis Soliloquy of Soul x, in tr. Thomas à Kempis Select Pieces II. 173 Wander not forth, O my Soul, after Vanities, nor after lying Madnesses.

1814 R. Wilson Diary 9 Feb. (1861) II. 309 It is madness to attempt the conquest of Italy against a force so posted as Beauharnois' with our limited disposable means.

1849 T. B. Macaulay Hist. Eng. I. v. 602 To advance towards London would have been madness.

1885 J. Payn Talk of Town II. 69 It would have been madness indeed to have any altercation.

1900 W. S. Davies Friend of Caesar xiii. 258 It was madness to embark on the stoven craft.

1913 Maclean's Aug. 103/1 The wars upon cigarettes, bridge whist and peekaboo waists are passing madnesses.

1952 R. P. Bissell Monongahela xix. 205 While sitting on the bunk pulling on your romeos you wonder what side of the family this madness comes from that makes you like this.

1985 J. Berman Talking Cure iv. 98 Adjustment to an insane society is the height of madness.

a1398 J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add.) f. 81 Þese passiouns beþ diuers, madnes þat hatte mania & madnes þat hatte malencolia.

Promptorium Parvulorum (Harl. 221) 319 Maddenesse, amencia, demencia.

1538 T. Elyot Dict. Rabies, Madnesse of a dogge.

1567 J. Maplet Greene Forest f. 46 Henbane, hath the name to be a cause of madnesse or furie.

1604 W. Shakespeare Hamlet iii. iv. 171 Let him..Make you to rouell all this matter out That I essentially am not in madnesse, But mad in craft. View more context for this quotation

1688 Philos. Trans. 1686–7 (Royal Soc.) 16 408 Doggs are Subject to these several sorts of Madness or rather diseases.

1753 Chambers's Cycl. Suppl. at Mania Madness arising from immaterial causes is much more difficult to cure.

1829 S. Cooper Good's Study Med. (ed. 3) IV. 106 In gloomy madness, in which there is often a chronic affection of the abdominal organs co-operating with a diseased condition of the brain, we find least to justify hope.

1849 T. B. Macaulay Hist. Eng. I. iv. 524 This delusion becomes almost a madness when many exiles..herd together.

1879 W. L. Lindsay Mind in Lower Animals I. 16 Madness in lower animals may mean any one of several very different affections, including especially insanity and rabies.

1907 J. R. Illingworth Doctr. Trinity x. 191 Madness, prison, suicide may be the end, and all equally symbolise the destruction of proper personality.

1948 V. Palmer Golconda xxxiii. 278 Hadn't it been plain all along that there was a streak of madness in the old boy?

1975 H. Bloom Map of Misreading ii. v. 118 His solipsism..would be total and therefore a madness if it were not for his final vision of his precursors.

1987 D. Rowe Beyond Fear v. 177 Theories of madness were concerned with possession by the Devil.

1990 D. Shekerjian Uncommon Genius xii. 181 Edgar Allan Poe was a drug addict. Sir Isaac Newton and Erza Pound were schizophrenics. Van Gogh was psychotic. Is there a connection between creativity and madness?

1595 G. Peele Old Wiues Tale sig. A3 How nowe fellowe Franticke, what all a mort? Doth this sadnes become thy madnes?

1600 W. Shakespeare Merchant of Venice i. ii. 19 Such a hare is madnes the youth, to skippe ore the meshes of good counsaile the cripple. View more context for this quotation

1607 J. Norden Surueyors Dialogue i. 9 A kind of madness, as I may call it, but in the best sence it is a kind of ambitious..emulation.

1775 S. Johnson Taxation no Tyranny 55 The madness of independence has spread from Colony to Colony.

1799 T. Campbell Pleasures of Hope & Other Poems i. 160 The smiling Muse..Shall..breathe a holy madness o'er thy mind.

1820 P. B. Shelley To Skylark in Prometheus Unbound 206 Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow.

1846 E. A. Poe in Godey's Lady's Bk. Nov. 216/1 It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season.

1879 J. A. Symonds Shelley 195 The Muses filled this man with sacred madness.

1927 E. O'Neill Lazarus Laughed iv. 177 He laughs with a wild triumphant madness and again rhetorically.

1992 City Limits 2 July 38/2 Cross-fade maniacs, Groove Rider, Squirrel, Loft Groover, DJ Hype, Chris Paul and Fabio return to the excellent North London rave venue for a packed night of upfront madness.