insanity
Americannoun
plural
insanities-
(not in technical use as a medical diagnosis) the condition of being insane; a derangement of the mind.
- Synonyms:
- madness, lunacy, aberration, mania, craziness
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Law. such unsoundness of mind as frees one from legal responsibility, as for committing a crime, or as signals one's lack of legal capacity, as for entering into a contractual agreement.
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Psychiatry. (formerly) psychosis.
-
-
extreme foolishness.
Trying to drive through that traffic would be pure insanity.
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a foolish or senseless action, policy, statement, etc..
We've heard decades of insanities in our political discourse.
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noun
-
relatively permanent disorder of the mind; state or condition of being insane
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law a defect of reason as a result of mental illness, such that a defendant does not know what he or she is doing or that it is wrong
-
utter folly; stupidity
Etymology
Origin of insanity
First recorded in 1580–90; from Latin insānitāt-, stem of insānitās “unsoundness of mind, insanity”; in- 3, sanity
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
An IT specialist working for MI5 on a contract who disclosed intelligence information to a "foreign power" has been found "not guilty by reason of insanity" by an Old Bailey jury.
From BBC
Others have been declared not guilt by reason of insanity, while others are in conservatorship.
From Los Angeles Times
Regardless of whether you grew up with the show, many episodes of “7th Heaven” have plotlines worth revisiting, if only for their insanity and cultural obsolescence.
From Los Angeles Times
That entire pseudo-event was one one of those blink-and-you-miss-it moments that get drowned out in the endless baying insanity of our collective reality.
From Salon
Jonah was glad that Chip could still show some sense of humor, that he hadn’t totally crossed the line into insanity.
From Literature
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
