amok

[ uh-muhk, uh-mok ]

noun

1. (among members of certain Southeast Asian cultures) a psychic disturbance characterized by depression followed by a manic urge to murder.

adjective

1. amuck.

amok

/ əˈmʌk; əˈmʌk; əˈmɒk /

noun

1. a state of murderous frenzy, originally observed among Malays

adverb

1. run amok
   run amok to run about with or as if with a frenzied desire to kill

Word History and Origins

Origin of amok¹

First recorded in 1865–70, amok is from the Malay word amuk

Word History and Origins

Origin of amok¹

C17: from Malay amoq furious assault

Idioms and Phrases

Idioms

1. run / go amok. amuck ( def 3 ).

Example Sentences

Many of the lawmakers I spoke to were reluctant to propose sweeping legislation that could run amok of civil liberties.

From Washington Post

It’s not that they don’t fear AI running amok—it’s that they see it already happening, just not in the ways most people would expect.

From MIT Technology Review

Moreover, they do almost nothing to address the very real privacy and security risks of corporate data exploitation run amok.

From MIT Technology Review

Greenhouse gases have run amok and made it totally inhospitable—perhaps an extreme version of what Earth could look like in the very distant future.

From MIT Technology Review

The story was framed as an instance of lawless youth run amok – an almost unprovoked riot.

From No Straight News

Perhaps the real clowns losing face while their evil clones run amok.

From The Daily Beast

His sexual life, just like his barbarism, was the result of deliberation, not appetites run amok.

From The Daily Beast

Do they have a point, or are their complaints just anti-intellectualism run amok?

From The Daily Beast

Tatum wears the shame(s) of a nation on his face in this quietly devastating portrait of the American dream run amok.

From The Daily Beast

“When you have an executive who has run amok, it is the solution our Founding Fathers have laid out,” he said.

From The Daily Beast

Briggs was taking no chances with another of the yellow dogs running amok.

From Project Gutenberg

A boy came up to us in great excitement to say that the prisoner had got hold of a bayonet and was running amok.

From Project Gutenberg

So he takes his knife an' runs amok to stab so many people as he can, an' he don't care a dam' if only he makes a big smash.

From Project Gutenberg

I saw one instance where a henpecked husband "ran amok" and killed or wounded seventeen people before he himself was killed.

From Project Gutenberg

All was confusion, all a kind of wild and orgiastic dream, culmination of heredity, of a spirit run amok.

From Project Gutenberg