Mind & EmotionGreek → English
Frenzy
/ˈfrɛnzi/noun
A state of wild, uncontrolled excitement or activity.
The Greek roots
φρενῖτις
phrenîtis
brain fever, delirium
Literally: “inflammation of the mind”
Follow a root:φρενῖτις1 word
The story of the word
Behind the word sits a Greek theory of the body. φρήν meant the diaphragm, and Homer puts thought and feeling there, so φρενῖτις named a fever that scrambled the mind. Medieval Latin made it phrenesis, Old French frenesie, and English had shortened it to frenzy by the fourteenth century. The medical sense fell away and left only the behaviour: a feeding frenzy, a media frenzy.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Medieval Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- 14th century
Same family
franticfreneticschizophreniaphrenology
In a sentence
The last twenty minutes of the sale turned into a frenzy of grabbing and queueing.
He worked himself into a frenzy over a deadline that was still a week away.