bedlam

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a scene of uproar and confusion

   When the fire alarm rang, the office descended into bedlam.

Simplified etymology

Bedlam comes from Bedlem, the medieval English form of Bethlehem. London’s Hospital of St Mary of Bethlehem, founded in 1247, had become a hospital for mentally ill people by 1402; its shortened name subsequently became a general term for such a hospital and, by the 17th century, for a scene of wild confusion.

An alteration of Bethlehem, from the Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem in London, a medieval asylum for the mentally ill; the name became a byword for madhouse and then for any scene of uproar.

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