madhouse

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   an extremely noisy, confused, or chaotic place or situation

   The newsroom became a madhouse as the election results arrived.

2. 2
   noun

   a dated and offensive term for a psychiatric hospital

   The novel reflects an era when people casually called an asylum a madhouse.

Formed in English from mad + house. It originally denoted a house where people considered insane were confined. The figurative sense, a place of uproar or disorder, developed from that institutional meaning. The literal use is now regarded as dated and offensive.

Topics

External links

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• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary