insanity
(not in technical use as a medical diagnosis) the condition of being insane; a derangement of the mind.
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.
Psychiatry. (formerly) psychosis.
extreme foolishness: Trying to drive through that traffic would be pure insanity.
a foolish or senseless action, policy, statement, etc.: We've heard decades of insanities in our political discourse.
Origin of insanity
1Other words for insanity
Words Nearby insanity
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use insanity in a sentence
ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky called the Bucs “the walking definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Tom Brady calls question about his relationship with Bruce Arians ‘external noise’ | Cindy Boren | November 30, 2020 | Washington PostThe definition of insanity — doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result — is an apt description of the post-election punditry.
Forget half-baked punditry. Watch a historic shift. | Jennifer Rubin | November 30, 2020 | Washington PostThe insanity of 2020 has, among other things, hammered home some basic truths about the art of management, starting with the fact that it was evolving rapidly long before a pandemic upended workplaces around the world.
It’s insanity, but Whirlpool just sold more bathtubs in a recession than in an expansion.
The biggest risks and opportunities for investors in 2021 | matthewheimer | November 20, 2020 | FortuneI just wanted to get out and be one of the first ones to cast my vote to hopefully end the insanity we are living in under the current administration.
Across the country, Democratic enthusiasm is propelling an enormous wave of early voting | Amy Gardner, Elise Viebeck | October 14, 2020 | Washington Post
AIDS insanity: When running for the US Senate in 1992, Huckabee called for a quarantine of people who had AIDS.
insanity, after all, is doing the same thing and expecting a different result, right?
But as Nietzsche once wrote, “In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs, it is the rule.”
Doctors Have No Answers for Colombian Teens' Mass Hysteria | Kent Sepkowitz | September 3, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTOnly one first world country would allow such insanity to continue.
9-Year Old With an Uzi? America Is Tougher on Toys Than Guns | Cliff Schecter | August 28, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTOn appeal in 2006, she was found to be not guilty by reason of insanity and remanded to a psychiatric hospital.
I cannot reconcile the idea of a tender Heavenly Father with the known horrors of war, slavery, pestilence, and insanity.
God and my Neighbour | Robert BlatchfordJames Otis recovered from a temporary fit of insanity only to grow strangely suspicious of Samuel Adams.
The Eve of the Revolution | Carl BeckerNo family history of epilepsy, insanity, nervous or other hereditary disorders in 59 per cent.
A Statistical Inquiry Into the Nature and Treatment of Epilepsy | Alexander Hughes BennettThus, to import insanity or incompetency to a professional man, or that a public official is dishonest and corrupt is actionable.
Putnam's Handy Law Book for the Layman | Albert Sidney BollesIt seems not unlikely that the underlying cause of so-called idiopathic insanity is usually some change within the brain cells.
Essays In Pastoral Medicine | Austin Malley
British Dictionary definitions for insanity
/ (ɪnˈsænɪtɪ) /
relatively permanent disorder of the mind; state or condition of being insane
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
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Browse