Meanings
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1
noun
an extremely noisy, confused, or chaotic place or situation
The newsroom became a madhouse as the election results arrived.
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2
noun
a dated and offensive term for a psychiatric hospital
The novel reflects an era when people casually called an asylum a madhouse.
Thesaurus
Etymology
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.