mania
noun
excessive excitement or enthusiasm; craze.
mania
1 American
[may-nee-uh, mayn-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
[may-nee-uh, mayn-yuh]
/ ˈmeɪ ni ə, ˈmeɪn jə /
noun
-mania
3
American
-mania
1
British
combining form
mania
2
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
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
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And Then There Were None
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It's Madness!: Mania
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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:
One is monetary: Loose money tends to encourage the kind of credit mania that’s especially dangerous when it coincides with a technological revolution.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2026
As well as frequent depressive periods, she experienced 'hypomania' episodes, spurts of unusually high energy, activity, or mood that were less severe than full mania.
From BBC ● Oct. 10, 2026
Demand exploded locally this decade, most memorably during a purple bread mania that swept the archipelago in the darkest days of the Covid-19 pandemic.
From Barron's ● Oct. 6, 2026
Instead, that was when meme-stock mania briefly gripped the market.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 5, 2026
She could only use patience and self-restraint poor tools when matched against the heartfelt mania of love to which the ancient race was martyred.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
He probably thinks this one is in the raunchy lineage of Dance Mania records, but it’s not nearly as committed to the bit.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 15, 2026
Appeared in the May 7, 2026, print edition as 'AI Mania Lifts Miscellany of Stocks'.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 7, 2026
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
For Kedrosky, then, the behavioral aspects of manias and bubbles don’t change: Investors chase things at the wrong time and then panic.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 1, 2026
No one seems to know, but I find it helpful to remind myself constantly that the internet can make niche manias look like moral revolutions.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 5, 2025
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
And with the meager resonance of most made-in-America manias.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 7, 2023
Used to his manias, Aureliano paid no attention to him.
From "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
