mania
noun
excessive excitement or enthusiasm; craze.
mania
1 American
[mey-nee-uh, meyn-yuh]
/ ˈmeɪ ni ə, ˈmeɪn jə /
noun
manias
plural
-
excessive excitement or enthusiasm; craze.
The country has a mania for soccer.
-
Psychiatry. manic disorder.
Mania
2
American
[mey-nee-uh, meyn-yuh]
/ ˈmeɪ ni ə, ˈmeɪn jə /
noun
-mania
3
American
mania
1
British
/ ˈmeɪnɪə /
noun
-
a mental disorder characterized by great excitement and occasionally violent behaviour See also manic-depressive
-
an obsessional enthusiasm or partiality
a mania for mushrooms
-mania
2
British
combining form
mania
Cultural
Usage
What does -mania mean? The combining form -mania is used like a suffix meaning literally “mania,” often in the sense of "enthusiasm, often of an extreme or transient nature." It is often used in scientific and technical terms, especially in psychology. The form -mania comes from Greek manía, meaning “madness.” Latin has three translations for manía: dēmentia, furor, and rabiēs, all meaning “madness.” Find out more at our entries for dementia, furor, and rabies.
Discover More
A “mania” in popular terms is an intense enthusiasm or craze.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of mania
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English, from Latin, from Greek manía “madness”; akin to maenad, mind
Explanation
Mania is an extreme interest, desire, or craze. If you dye your dog's fur to match the colors of your favorite football team, you might be suffering from sportsmania. Mania has for centuries been associated with “madness” or “mental derangement.” It's still used in the mental health fields to mean the excitable, overactive phase of bipolar disorder or, as a suffix, to describe a compulsion, such as kleptomania (to steal) or pyromania (to set fires). More generally, it might be used as a suffix to describe enthusiasm, as in Beatlemania (The Beatles) or Pottermania (Harry Potter).
Vocabulary lists containing mania
Stargirl
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
And Then There Were None
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
It's Madness!: Mania
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
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.
See Examples For:
Probably more important, the stock mania of the late 1990s and the long bear market that followed are more distant memories.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 8, 2026
If Messi mania exists anywhere outside Argentina, it is perhaps at its strongest in Miami.
From BBC ● Jul. 4, 2026
Two participants with bipolar disorder who received creatine developed hypomania or mania, suggesting that creatine may affect people differently depending on their underlying condition.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 30, 2026
The Eala mania mirrors the same kind of fan frenzy that Brazil’s 19-year-old Joao Fonseca has generated on the men’s tour.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 30, 2026
Around that time he had begun to say and do things that, as Dr. Webb says, were signs of some sort of nervous breakdown or stress-induced mania.
From "Where Things Come Back" by John Corey Whaley
Appeared in the May 7, 2026, print edition as 'AI Mania Lifts Miscellany of Stocks'.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 7, 2026
Attendees were also surprised by the developers of the 2017 hit, Sonic Mania, unexpectedly announcing their latest game.
From BBC ● Feb. 21, 2024
The seven-time Ballon d’Or winner who spurred Messi Mania in the United States by joining MLS will now turn his attention to Argentina’s World Cup qualifiers against Brazil and Uruguay in November.
From Washington Times ● Oct. 22, 2023
It was Taylor Mania in Seattle over the weekend, but the rest of the country was flipping over another American icon: Barbie.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 24, 2023
She enjoyed the WWF Wrestling Mania shows, where Hulk Hogan and Mr. Perfect, whose necks were wider than their heads, wore spangled Lycra leggings and beat each other up brutally.
From "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy
Photograph: Frank Baron for the Guardian High summer -mania, if such a thing really exists, appears to be a fitful condition, a complaint that passes in a rush leaving its victims mercifully unpocked.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 25, 2010
“If rates or credit spreads ever go up, the companies that borrowed will have to borrow at even higher rates,” Mr. Dimon warns—a timeless lesson often forgotten in credit manias.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 6, 2026
It’s hard to value the potential growth of such businesses, which is why speculative meme-stock manias can take hold so easily.
From Barron's ● Oct. 23, 2025
Berg, a Swiss writer and social activist, sprays her fury across the whole landscape of technological and economic manias that are rendering the 21st century intolerable.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 13, 2022
That his newfound fandom is mostly a way of redirecting an impossible crush does not make it any less meaningful; that kind of sublimation may indeed be an unspoken aspect of many sports manias.
From New York Times ● Apr. 4, 2022
Used to his manias, Aureliano paid no attention to him.
From "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
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.
