Madhouse

/ˈmædˌhaʊs/ · noun

Meaning

(obsolete) A house where insane persons are confined; an insane asylum..

Definitions by Sense

1. (obsolete) A house where insane persons are confined; an insane asylum.
2. (figuratively, by extension) A chaotic, uproarious, noisy place.

Example Sentences

The palace, the night-cellar, the jail, the madhouse: the chambers of birth and death, of health and sickness, the rigid face of the corpse and the calm sleep of the child: midnight was upon them all.

The king experienced his first attack in autumn 1788, and as his condition worsened and the physicians-in-ordinary proved unable to cope or cure, the Reverend Dr Francis Willis (1717–1807), a clergyman doctor who ran a madhouse in Lincolnshire, was called in.

He is almost a tourist of his own book. There is a hint of the fad a couple of centuries ago for visiting madhouses in search of the exotic.

This taut, soldierly, professional story is something of a stranger among American novels about war making. Angry civilians have writ ten most of the best fiction on the subject, from “Three Soldiers” through “Catch‐22,” to make the point (with a good deal of literary overkill) that wars are mass insanity and that armies are madhouses.

Synonyms for madhouse

Antonyms for madhouse

Related Words

Word Forms

• madhouses

Usage Notes

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