frenzy
Americannoun
-
frenzies
plural
-
a state of extreme mental agitation or wild excitement.
There's something big businesses love about working their customers into a frenzy of anticipation.
- Antonyms:
- calm
-
a burst of agitated, energetic action or activity.
Athens in the late 1960s was in the midst of a building frenzy.
-
a fit or spell of mental derangement; a paroxysm characteristic of or resulting from a mania.
He is subject to these frenzies several times a year.
- Antonyms:
- sanity
verb (used with object)
noun
-
violent mental derangement
-
wild excitement or agitation; distraction
-
a bout of wild or agitated activity
a frenzy of preparations
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of frenzy
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English frenesie, from Old French, from Late Latin phrenēsis, from Late Greek, for Greek phrenîtis; see phrenitis
Explanation
In a frenzy, people go into a state of hysteria. Stay away from hungry sharks or kids at a 16th birthday party when the pizza arrives if you don't want to get caught up in a feeding frenzy. Frenzy is derived from the Latin word phreneticus meaning "delirious." If you're in a frenzy, you're certainly delirious. You can be in a frenzy because something made you mad, happy, or even just hungry — whatever makes you so crazy you're not thinking clearly. Frenzy is often used when talking about a group of people (or animals) who get worked up at the same time about the same thing, like sharks near tasty fish or teenagers near pizza.
Vocabulary lists containing frenzy
Walk Two Moons
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Mayhem! Chaos! Pandemonium!
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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:
This summer has seen a frenzy around Christopher Nolan’s Imax-shot “The Odyssey,” with audiences clamoring to experience it in various permutations.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 2026
The news that she was dating Ventimiglia kicked the frenzy into overdrive, especially since he was 30 years old at the time while she was 18.
From Salon ● Aug. 19, 2026
The firm's shares jumped over 600 percent on opening, but the frenzy is very much a bet on the future, with commercial application of even the most sophisticated humanoids currently limited.
From Barron's ● Aug. 19, 2026
The Arday story sparked something of a feeding frenzy in Britain’s notoriously aggressive press.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
While everybody was running from the house, I cast around in a frenzy trying to think what to save.
From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver
The Allbirds pivot is also reminiscent of prior frenzies in cryptocurrencies and in the tech sector.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 15, 2026
The recent rally in silver is notable, with the white metal exhibiting significant volatility as it has attracted a wave of retail investors in a repeat of previous frenzies over the metal.
From Barron's ● Jan. 2, 2026
Editor Eleanor Infante entrusts the movie’s energy to montages: fashion shoots, photo booths, feeding frenzies.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 7, 2025
Even our recent market volatility — from meme stock frenzies to cryptocurrency bubbles — reflects the same pattern.
From Salon ● Jul. 12, 2025
The proles, normally apathetic about the war, were being lashed into one of their periodical frenzies of patriotism.
From "1984" by George Orwell
Fourteen publishers bid for the U.S. rights, and Macmillan’s Minotaur Books imprint won the frenzied auction.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 2026
Leveraged ETFs and their siblings, inverse funds, are risky, and their frenzied proliferation that kicked into overdrive 2025 may be overshadowing their big jump in closures this year.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 28, 2026
The frenzied scenes around this clammy building eventually abated, only for Faye Rogers to spark more bedlam with a rampant gold in the 200m individual medley SM10.
From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026
A frenzied push for artificial intelligence dominance comes with a different kind of cost for Meta, where massive layoffs, employee surveillance and departures have fueled reports of a heated internal climate.
From Barron's ● Jul. 1, 2026
So I focused on ATO in the evenings and frenzied work on the Essa project as my deadline approached.
From "Bye Forever, I Guess" by Jodi Meadows
Loya: —and then they’re just frenzying around their house.
From Slate ● Aug. 10, 2019
He watched their splashing, their excitement, and their frenzying limbs with the awareness that this tousling around had no higher significance.
From Tokyo to Tijuana: Gabriele Departing America by Steven (Steven David Justin) Sills
Still we must doubt the competency of the alleged authors of the excitement to perform the bewildering and frenzying acts ascribed to them.
From Witchcraft of New England Explained by Modern Spiritualism by Allen Putnam
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.
