 |
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Insanity \In*san"i*ty\, noun [L. insanitas unsoundness; cf. insania insanity, F. insanite.]
1. The state of being insane; unsoundness or derangement of mind; madness; lunacy.
All power of fancy over reason is a degree of insanity. --Johnson.
Without grace The heart's insanity admits no cure. --Cowper.
2. (Law) Such a mental condition, as, either from the existence of delusions, or from incapacity to distinguish between right and wrong, with regard to any matter under action, does away with individual responsibility.
Syn: {Insanity}, {Lunacy}, {Madness}, {Derangement}, {Alienation}, {Aberration}, {Mania}, {Delirium}, {Frenzy}, {Monomania}, {Dementia}.
Usage: Insanity is the generic term for all such diseases; lunacy has now an equal extent of meaning, though once used to denote periodical insanity; madness has the same extent, though originally referring to the rage created by the disease; derangement, alienation, are popular terms for insanity; delirium, mania, and frenzy denote excited states of the disease; dementia denotes the loss of mental power by this means; monomania is insanity upon a single subject.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
insanity
noun: relatively permanent disorder of the mind [ant: {sanity}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
116 Moby Thesaurus words for "insanity": aberration, absurdity, alienation, amentia, arrested development, asininity, backwardness, battiness, blithering idiocy, brain disease, brainlessness, buffoonery, clownishness, crack-up, crackpottedness, crankiness, craziness, cretinism, daffiness, delirium, delusion, dementia praecox, derangement, desipience, distraction, dotage, dottiness, eccentricity, emotional disorder, emotional instability, fatuity, fatuousness, folly, foolery, foolheadedness, foolishness, frenzy, frivolity, frivolousness, functional nervous disorder, giddiness, goofiness, half-wittedness, hallucination, hysteria, idiocy, idiotism, illusion, imbecility, impracticality, inanity, ineptitude, infantilism, insaneness, irrationality, irresponsibility, lunacy, madness, maladjustment, mania, manic-depressive psychosis, melancholia, mental defectiveness, mental deficiency, mental derangement, mental disorder, mental handicap, mental illness, mental retardation, mindlessness, mongolianism, mongolism, mongoloid idiocy, moronism, moronity, nervous breakdown, nervous disorder, neurosis, niaiserie, nonsense, nugacity, nuttiness, paranoia, personality disorder, preposterousness, problems in living, profound idiocy, psychoneurosis, psychopathy, psychosis, queerness, reaction, retardation, retardment, sappiness, schizophrenia, screwiness, senselessness, silliness, simple-wittedness, simplemindedness, simpleness, simplicity, social maladjustment, stupidity, subnormality, thoughtlessness, triflingness, triviality, unbalance, unreasonableness, wackiness, weirdness, witlessness, zaniness, zanyism
 |
Definitions retrieved from local copies of the freely distributed DICT client/server software and databases. Click here for database copyright information. - KM |