mad

«mad» in Mova's school dictionary: Angry — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

adjective (mad, madder, maddest)

meaning for a pupil

1) (informal, especially USA) Angry. tree →

2) (UK and elsewhere, informal) Very silly or foolish; crazy. tree →

3) mad about/on: liking something very much. tree →

4) (old or offensive) Mentally ill; avoid this use about real people. tree →

5) (slang) Very, or very great: "mad skills". tree →

sense in the lessons

In everyday talk: "Mum was mad at me" (angry, mostly USA), "you're mad to swim in winter" (crazy, UK). Phrases: mad at, mad about, go mad, drive someone mad, like mad, mad as a hatter.

examples

• Mum was mad at me for being late. tree →
• You're mad to go swimming in this cold! tree →
• She's mad about horses. tree →
• The noise is driving me mad. tree →
• We ran like mad to catch the bus. tree →
• The crowd went mad when we scored. tree →
• (slang) He's got mad skills on the skateboard. tree →
• "Den Brer Possum git mighty mad. tree →

note

Comparison: madder, maddest (double d). "Mad" meaning angry is more American; in the UK people more often mean "crazy". Calling a real person "mad" for illness is unkind. "Like mad" means very fast or very hard.

In the corpora

• "Mad" in this book means crazy and silly; calling real people "mad" because they are ill is unkind.
• Therefore I'm mad." Alice says "I call it purring, not growling."
• They jump about like mad things while explaining, then suddenly sit down sadly and quietly.
• «Funny!» Then he starts digging in the snow like mad.
• The Mole digs, mostly to humour his friend, who he thinks is going a bit mad.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «mad» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.