mad
Use “mad” as an adjective when a person is angry about something.
- Why are you so mad?
- Teresa is mad at her sister.
- Fred never gets mad.
- This makes me mad.
She’s very mad!
a. mad = angry
The verbs be, get, and make are often used with the adjective mad.
- He’s mad. (be + mad)
- He’s mad at me.
- He’s mad at me for something that I did.
- What did I do to make him so made at me? (make + mad)
- That made her mad. (We often use “make” + an object pronoun: me, you, him, her, us, them.)
- Selfish people make her mad.
- She gets mad when she sees someone being mean. (get + mad)
- He’s getting mad.
- My boss got mad when I asked her for a day off. (This sentence is in the past tense.)
- He’s mad at his parents.
- Sometimes they make him so mad!
- Children often get mad at things they don’t quite understand.
b. mad = crazy
- Edward feels like he’s about to go mad.
- This problem is driving me mad.
- This is absolutely maddening. (The word “maddening” is the present participle for the verb “madden.”)
- A: What happend to him?
- B: He went mad.
- A: How did he go mad.
- B: He went mad as a result of stress.
- King George of England went mad.
- Working for a large corporation made Jim go mad.
- He’s mad as a hatter. (This is an expression–mad as a hatter.)
c. You can use "mad" as a verb.
When “mad” is a verb, it becomes “madden.” This is not a popular verb, but you will hear it used:
- It maddens us to learn about so many children killed in war.
- We are maddened by this problem. (This is the passive voice.)
- If enough people are maddened by something, they will demand a solution.
- I am maddened by the atrocities committed by aggressive nations.
- It maddens me to think about it.
d. The word "mad" is found in some expressions.
- Rob is mad about Linda. (mad about = in love)
- Linda is mad about Rob.
- They are mad for each other.
- They are madly in love.
- People who are madly in love lose their sensibilities.
- The passenger on the plane went stark raving mad when the flight attendant asked him to put on his seatbelt. (go or be + stark raving mad = a person becomes uncontrollably angry.)
- She’s hopping mad because someone stole her car. (hopping mad = very angry)
- It’s good to get away from the maddening crowd and relax. (the maddening crowd = daily routine + crowds of people. This is an allusion to Thomas Hardy’s novel, Far from the Maddening Crowd. I read this when I was in college. It’s a challenging, but like most British novels from this era, it’s good for vocabulary development.)
I find crowds to be quite maddening.