derange
Americanverb (used with object)
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deranges,
present (3rd person singular)
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deranged,
past participle, past
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deranging
present participle
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to throw into disorder; disarrange.
-
to disturb the condition, action, or function of.
-
to make insane.
verb
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to disturb the order or arrangement of; throw into disorder; disarrange
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to disturb the action or operation of
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to make insane; drive mad
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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derangesimple
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derangessimple
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have derangedperfect
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has derangedperfect
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am derangingprogressive
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are derangingprogressive
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is derangingprogressive
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have been derangingperfect progressive
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has been derangingperfect progressive
Past
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derangedsimple
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had derangedperfect
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was derangingprogressive
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were derangingprogressive
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had been derangingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of derange
1770–80; < French déranger, Old French desrengier, equivalent to des- dis- 1 + rengier; see range
Explanation
To derange someone is to make her go crazy or completely confuse her. Going without sleep for an entire week can derange a person. It's more common to see the adjective deranged — or insane — than the verb derange, but you can use it to describe what happens when someone or something drives a person batty. Too many head injuries can derange a football player's short term memory, and a teasing cat just out of reach might derange a tied-up dog in a yard. The Old French root of derange is desrengier, "throw into disorder," which combines des, "do the opposite of" and rengier, "put into line."
Vocabulary lists containing derange
The Bluest Eye
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Stories of Ourselves
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A Game of Thrones
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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:
Tolentino explores these overheated environments and their incentives, and how they derange our sense of ourselves and our values.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 9, 2019
Though ambiguity and the unknowable drive and derange this novel’s characters, I don’t believe Apostol is arguing against the existence of demonstrable fact.
From New York Times ● Dec. 26, 2018
And yet neighbors living in democracies can derange themselves, too.
From The New Yorker ● Oct. 31, 2016
Twin Peaks didn’t break the rules of dramatic television so much as subtly derange them.
From Slate ● Nov. 12, 2015
The quality of her clothes threatened to derange Frieda and me.
From "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison
Some chess dramas show the game as destructive, a pursuit that deranges its disciples.
From New York Times ● Oct. 16, 2020
One shot in particular briefly references, and deranges, the Star Child sequence from “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 10, 2018
Then again, a whole sequence in which Dreyfuss builds his dream peak in the living room from mud and shrubbery is so forced and silly it nearly deranges all the rest of the movie.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 31, 2017
There are two good reasons for its abolition: it infantilises us, and, in turn, it deranges the royals.
From The Guardian ● May 29, 2012
As soon as the warmth ceases, all the spectacle vanishes, the matter deranges itself and falls to the bottom of the vessel, to form there a new chaos.
From The Phantom World or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. by Henry Christmas
It is even more deranged than you might expect.
From Slate ● Sep. 16, 2026
Despite the dismissal, Burgum vowed that the administration “won’t back down to deranged people who want to destroy, deface, or degrade our monuments.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 1, 2026
The US president at one point claimed the pool had been targeted by "sick, deranged" vandals, and was "given a 300 foot long gash" by a blade.
From BBC ● Aug. 1, 2026
A spokesperson for the Department of the Interior, which manages the National Mall in downtown Washington, described the incident as "deranged vandalism" and said it "will not be tolerated."
From Barron's ● Jun. 11, 2026
I was listening for the sound of footsteps in the hall, and when I heard them I became deranged.
From "Educated" by Tara Westover
So much so, in fact, that John Wherry, director of the Penn Medicine Immune Health Institute, summed it up this way to Kaiser Health News: “COVID is deranging the immune system.”
From Slate ● Jan. 31, 2023
Because he’s never put himself out there like this, and it’s deranging him because he’s a highly emotional person.
From The Verge ● Apr. 15, 2022
"Covid is deranging the immune system," said John Wherry, director of the Penn Medicine Immune Health Institute and another co-author of the January study.
From Salon ● Mar. 8, 2021
The New Yorker staff writer delivers an essay collection exploring the myriad modern-day forces deranging us, our ideas and our cultural values.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 19, 2019
The poor financial administration of the government seemed deranging everything; and again a social movement was instituted in New England to promote "Oeconomy and Household Industries."
From Home Life in Colonial Days by Alice Morse Earle
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.
