madhouse
Americannoun
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madhouses
plural
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a hospital for the confinement and treatment of mentally disturbed persons.
-
a wild, confused, and often noisy place, set of circumstances, etc..
The office was a madhouse today.
- Synonyms:
- bedlam
noun
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a mental hospital or asylum
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a state of uproar or confusion
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of madhouse
Explanation
A madhouse is an old fashioned and derogatory word for a psychiatric hospital. It was once quite common to talk about mentally ill people being sent to the madhouse, but that would be offensive today. While the many terms for psychiatric hospital (or the archaic insane asylum), including madhouse and funny farm or loony bin are no longer an acceptable way to talk about mental health care, most of them are commonly used to informally describe confused or chaotic situations. It would make sense to describe a roomful of eight year-olds running around and screaming happily as a madhouse, for example.
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:
The team was undecided on how well Mellencamp’s biggest hits—sepia-tinted odes to small-town America—fit today’s college football madhouse cathedrals.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 16, 2026
Tim O’Reilly, a media writer in Chicago, says that if he didn’t come to a streaming service with a title already in mind, the search would be a madhouse.
From Salon ● May 22, 2025
Mr Acciardo described the scene as a "madhouse" when first responders arrived.
From BBC ● Sep. 9, 2024
Management said staff will be in place early that morning in anticipation of a madhouse.
From Seattle Times ● May 29, 2024
Plus, I hiked alone to get our Sunday bread because Lolo said he was feeling too tired, and then I watched the twins while Tía worked the Sunday madhouse at El Caribe.
From "Merci Suárez Changes Gears" by Meg Medina
The burnt-orange and Sooner-red halves of the Cotton Bowl had alternated as madhouses.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 9, 2021
“The incarceration of freethinking healthy people in madhouses is spiritual murder,” he said.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 17, 2018
It would be a total madhouse but, remembering the previous total madhouses, you could go: OK, we just have to hold out for another 15 minutes and it will recede.
From Slate ● Jan. 7, 2013
In every town he knows the jails, the madhouses, the cantinas and the churches.
From Time Magazine Archive
There were frequent and dangerous abuses in madhouses, so in 1774, no one may keep or confine more than one lunatic without a license granted by the Royal College of Physicians or forfeit 500 pounds.
From Our Legal Heritage : 600-1776 King Aethelbert - King George III by S. A. Reilly
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.
