crazy
/ˈkreɪzi
/informal
adjective (crazier, craziest)
1Mad, especially as manifested in wild or aggressive behaviour: Stella went crazy and assaulted a visitor a crazy look...
- Everyone thought he went crazy, thought he was a madman.
- About a year and a half after the marriage broke up, things started to get bad and I sort of lost it… I went crazy.
- Though a sad, sick fan also went crazy and assaulted the referee.
Synonyms
mad, insane, out of one's mind, deranged, demented, not in one's right mind, crazed, lunatic, non compos mentis, unbalanced, unhinged, unstable, disturbed, distracted, mad as a hatter, mad as a March hare, stark mad;
British sectionable
informal mental, off one's head, out of one's head, off one's nut, nutty, nutty as a fruitcake, off one's rocker, not (quite) right in the head, round the bend, raving mad, stark staring/raving mad, bats, batty, bonkers, cuckoo, loopy, loony, bananas, loco, dippy, screwy, with a screw loose, touched, gaga, doolally, up the pole, not all there, off the wall, out to lunch, not right upstairs, away with the fairies
British informal barmy, crackers, barking, barking mad, round the twist, off one's trolley, as daft as a brush, not the full shilling, one sandwich short of a picnic
North American informal buggy, nutsy, nutso, out of one's tree, meshuga, squirrelly, wacko, gonzo
Canadian & Australian/New Zealand informal bushed
Australian informal yarra
New Zealand informal porangi
1.1Extremely angry: the noise was driving me crazy...
- He was driving her crazy acting like a stubborn child.
- It made me want to say, ‘Hey, Charlotte, you're driving him crazy, he's a man, give him a break.’
- Joe decided that he had to get his hair cut while we were on vacation, because it was ‘too long,’ and therefore driving him crazy.
1.2Foolish: it was crazy to hope that good might come out of this mess...
- She laughed again, as if the concept was too crazy to grasp.
- It seems totally crazy to have left a good job in NZ to come here to be together and then have to spend less time ‘together’ than we did when I lived in NZ.
- Not for the first time, I'm wondering if I'm crazy to be here.
Synonyms
absurd, preposterous, ridiculous, ludicrous, farcical, laughable, risible;
idiotic, stupid, foolish, foolhardy, unwise, imprudent, ill-conceived, silly, inane, puerile, infantile, fatuous, imbecilic, hare-brained, half-baked;
unreasonable, irrational, illogical, nonsensical, pointless, senseless, impracticable, unworkable, unrealistic;
outrageous, wild, shocking, astonishing, monstrous;
unbelievable, incredible, unthinkable, implausible;
peculiar, odd, strange, queer, weird, eccentric, bizarre, fantastic, incongruous, grotesque
informal barmy, daft, potty, cock-eyed
US informal wackadoo, wackadoodle
2Extremely enthusiastic: I’m crazy about Cindy [in combination]: a football-crazy bunch of boys...
- And you were crazy about him, too, once, remember?
- I like the melody of the acoustic guitar here, but I'm not crazy about the fact that it's acoustic guitar or that it's put with those other instruments.
- No wonder some kids aren't so crazy about books.
Synonyms
very enthusiastic, passionate, fanatical, excited;
very keen on, enamoured of, infatuated with, smitten with, devoted to, fond of
informal wild, mad, nutty, nuts, potty, gone on
informal, dated sweet on
3(Of an angle) appearing absurdly out of place or unlikely: the monument leant at a crazy angle...
- He considered this, but he stifled his reply when he caught sight of a seemingly ordinary pile of rock that rose at a crazy angle out of the ground.
- That night, as I closed my eyes to try to sleep, all I could see was the bow of the central hull, pointing at a crazy angle going full-throttle down a wave and accelerating into a wall of water.
- He attempted the almost impossible, trying to squeeze the ball in from a crazy angle when really the pass to an attacking colleague was the only option.
3.1 archaic (Of a ship or building) full of cracks or flaws; unsound.
adverb [as submodifier] chiefly North American
Extremely: I’ve been crazy busy...
- He wouldn't be called El Oso Blanco (The White Bear) if he weren't crazy strong.
- Even if he did fight chumps his whole career the knockout ratio is crazy high.
- This storm isn't crazy strong, but its ability to stir up the ocean and the major metropolitan areas it's hitting have everyone preparing for the worst.
noun (plural crazies) chiefly North American
A mad person: keep that crazy away from me...
- He had asked me to house-sit for him, which meant watering the lawn and making sure religious crazies and psycho vampire hunters didn't burn the place down while he was gone.
- Fame has brought some unwanted attention: the crazies on the Internet now assail the site from time to time, sometimes with organized campaigns.
- As an expatriate from the Great Lakes State (and someone born in mid-winter, which I like to think has something to do with it), I am one of those crazies who actually enjoy snowy winters.
Phrases
like crazy
Origin
Late 16th century (in sense 'full of cracks'): from craze + -y1.
The root here is the verb to craze (Late Middle English), which is now ‘to drive mad, send crazy’ or ‘to develop a network of small cracks’ but originally meant ‘to break in pieces, shatter’. So a crazy person has had their sanity shattered. Crazy formerly meant ‘broken, damaged’ and ‘frail, unwell, infirm’. See also daft