rage
Americannoun
-
rages
plural
-
angry fury; violent anger (sometimes used in combination).
a speech full of rage;
incidents of road rage.
- Antonyms:
- calm
-
a fit of violent anger.
Her rages usually don't last too long.
-
fury or violence of wind, waves, fire, disease, etc.
- Synonyms:
- turbulence
-
violence of feeling, desire, or appetite.
the rage of thirst.
-
a violent desire or passion.
-
ardor; fervor; enthusiasm.
poetic rage.
-
the object of widespread enthusiasm, as for being popular or fashionable.
Raccoon coats were the rage on campus.
-
Archaic. insanity.
verb (used without object)
-
rages,
present (3rd person singular)
-
raged,
past participle, past
-
raging
present participle
-
to act or speak with fury; show or feel violent anger; fulminate.
-
to move, rush, dash, or surge furiously.
-
to proceed, continue, or prevail with great violence.
The battle raged ten days.
-
(of feelings, opinions, etc.) to hold sway with unabated violence.
idioms
noun
-
intense anger; fury
-
violent movement or action, esp of the sea, wind, etc
-
great intensity of hunger, sexual desire, or other feelings
-
aggressive behaviour associated with a specified environment or activity
road rage
school rage
-
a fashion or craze (esp in the phrase all the rage )
-
informal a dance or party
verb
-
to feel or exhibit intense anger
-
(esp of storms, fires, etc) to move or surge with great violence
-
(esp of a disease or epidemic) to spread rapidly and uncontrollably
-
informal to have a good time
Synonym Usage
See anger.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
ragesimple
-
ragessimple
-
have ragedperfect
-
has ragedperfect
-
am ragingprogressive
-
are ragingprogressive
-
is ragingprogressive
-
have been ragingperfect progressive
-
has been ragingperfect progressive
Past
-
ragedsimple
-
had ragedperfect
-
was ragingprogressive
-
were ragingprogressive
-
had been ragingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of rage
First recorded in 1250–1300; (for the noun) Middle English, from Old French, from Late Latin rabia, Latin rabiēs “madness” ( see rabies ( def. )), derivative of rabere “to be mad, rave”; verb derivative of the noun
Explanation
Rage is a really intense anger. Some frustrated drivers let their emotions boil over into road rage when another car cuts them off, for example. If you're full of rage, you're full of anger — powerful, extreme, sometimes even violent anger. Rage can also be a verb: you might rage against something you hate or as the poet Dylan Thomas pleaded, "Rage, rage against the dying of the light." Things that rage are out of control, like a raging, roaring fire or a wild storm. Another meaning involves the latest, greatest trend — you'd say it's "all the rage."
Vocabulary lists containing rage
Emotions on Display
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Christmas Carol Vocab: A Lyrical Lexicon
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Instead of "Said": Vexed Verbiage to Express Anger
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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:
But today, female rage is increasingly positioned as understandable and even liberating.
From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2026
Adaptations, remakes and reboots are all the rage right now, and there’s often one question that crops up - why?
From BBC ● Oct. 7, 2026
They said she was furious at coworkers, planning to quit her job and channeling that rage into her driving.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026
“You’ve read my book now. Don’t do what I did. Get past this kind of rage thing and get to the work-really-hard thing.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 21, 2026
Valley seemed to snap out of her rage and scrambled to pick up the broken pieces of the dish, also wiping tears from her own eyes.
From "Witchlings" by Claribel A. Ortega
He sent the letter as a fierce debate rages over whether the development of AI should be slowed.
From Barron's ● Sep. 14, 2026
Feelings bubbled up uncontrollably: inconsolable howls in infancy, classroom meltdowns in childhood, rages in adolescence.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 26, 2026
The debate about social media and child safety rages on, as Meta faces a slew of similar lawsuits similar to this one.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 26, 2026
A copy of the Daily Mail dated 12 June 1944 - days after D-Day - reports that "battle rages around empty Caen" and "trap closing on Nazis".
From BBC ● May 4, 2026
I’d heard Mother laugh about Georgie’s rages, but I’d never found them particularly amusing.
From "The Old Willis Place" by Mary Downing Hahn
As the country raged that the Broncos got hosed, the man in charge of the team took the high road.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 9, 2026
As the fire raged, mother and son used garden hoses to defend their property as nearby dwellings were torched.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 1, 2026
In some ways, the situation is reminiscent of an argument that raged in the 1950s over “who lost China.”
From Salon ● Aug. 23, 2026
Dozens of people were evacuated as the fire raged but, of the 96 houses that were evacuated, 85 families were able to return, Dudley Council said.
From BBC ● Aug. 20, 2026
The more I raged, the more friction and heat overwhelmed me.
From "Sir Fig Newton and the Science of Persistence" by Sonja Thomas
Wildfires raging in Indonesia have produced toxic smog, causing around 175,000 people to suffer respiratory illnesses since August.
From BBC ● Sep. 23, 2026
It appears almost lifeless, with the ash transformed into raging mudflows called lahars in every storm.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 22, 2026
Many ran to that scene, where a fire was raging.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 16, 2026
Much of the novel comes in the form of chatter among the cemetery’s ghostly residents, and the novel’s depiction of this graveyard cacophony reflects the chaos of the Civil War, raging all the while.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 11, 2026
The raging current had tossed and twisted him, almost tearing him to pieces.
From "I Survived Hurricane Katrina, 2005" by Lauren Tarshis
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.
