Hyper Dictionary

English Dictionary Computer Dictionary Video Dictionary Thesaurus Dream Dictionary Medical Dictionary

Search Dictionary:  

Meaning of INSANITY

Pronunciation:  in'sanitee

WordNet Dictionary
[n]  relatively permanent disorder of the mind

INSANITY is a 8 letter word that starts with I.


 Antonyms: saneness, sanity
 See Also: craziness, daftness, dementedness, dementia, derangement, flakiness, insaneness, irrationality, lunacy, madness, mental disease, mental illness, mental unsoundness, psychopathy, unbalance, unreason



Webster's 1913 Dictionary
\In*san"i*ty\, n. [L. insanitas unsoundness; cf.
insania insanity, F. insanite.]
1. The state of being insane; unsoundness or derangement of
   mind; madness; lunacy.

         All power of fancy overreason is a degree of
         insanity.                             --Johnson.

         Without grace The heart's insanity admits no cure.

2. (Law) Such a mental condition, as, either from the
   existence of delusions, or from incapacity to distinguish
   between right and wrong, with regard to any matter under
   action, does away with individual responsibility.

Syn: Syn>- {Insanity}, {Lunacy}, {Madness}, {Derangement},
     {Aliention}, {Aberration}, {Mania}, {Delirium},
     {Frenzy}, {Monomania}, {Dementia}.

Usage: Insanity is the generic term for all such diseases;
       lunacy has now an equal extent of meaning, though once
       used to denote periodical insanity; madness has the
       same extent, though originally referring to the rage
       created by the disease; derangement, alienation, are
       popular terms for insanity; delirium, mania, and
       frenzy denote excited states of the disease; dementia
       denotes the loss of mental power by this means;
       monomania is insanity upon a single subject.

Dream Dictionary
 Definition: Dreaming that you or someone is insane, represents your retreat from reality. You have difficulties in telling what is right and wrong.
Thesaurus Terms
 Related Terms: aberration, absurdity, alienation, amentia, arrested development, asininity, backwardness, battiness, blithering idiocy, brain disease, brainlessness, buffoonery, clownishness, crackpottedness, crack-up, crankiness, craziness, cretinism, daffiness, delirium, delusion, dementia praecox, derangement, desipience, distraction, dotage, dottiness, eccentricity, emotional disorder, emotional instability, fatuity, fatuousness, folly, foolery, foolheadedness, foolishness, frenzy, frivolity, frivolousness, functional nervous disorder, giddiness, goofiness, half-wittedness, hallucination, hysteria, idiocy, idiotism, illusion, imbecility, impracticality, inanity, ineptitude, infantilism, insaneness, irrationality, irresponsibility, lunacy, madness, maladjustment, mania, manic-depressive psychosis, melancholia, mental defectiveness, mental deficiency, mental derangement, mental disorder, mental handicap, mental illness, mental retardation, mindlessness, mongolianism, mongolism, mongoloid idiocy, moronism, moronity, nervous breakdown, nervous disorder, neurosis, niaiserie, nonsense, nugacity, nuttiness, paranoia, personality disorder, preposterousness, problems in living, profound idiocy, psychoneurosis, psychopathy, psychosis, queerness, reaction, retardation, retardment, sappiness, schizophrenia, screwiness, senselessness, silliness, simplemindedness, simpleness, simple-wittedness, simplicity, social maladjustment, stupidity, subnormality, thoughtlessness, triflingness, triviality, unbalance, unreasonableness, wackiness, weirdness, witlessness, zaniness, zanyism