deranged

adjective

de·​ranged di-ˈrānjd 

1

often offensive : mentally unsound : insane sense 1b

—not used technically

2

sometimes offensive : wildly odd or eccentric

His life was crowded, rather than peacefully isolated, and certainly never of an Olympian detachment, even though he was capable of quite deranged gestures of show-offy extravagance—such as buying an enormous house, more suitable for a banker than a painter …

—Robert Hughes

Or you could take part in a deranged computer game where you had to cycle after a huge beach ball, scoop it up and throw it through a hoop, scoring points for each goal.

—Natasha Ellis

3

dated, now sometimes offensive : disturbed or disordered in function, structure, or condition

My leg was propped up on a library chair at the time, as it was too deranged to bend.

—Cynthia Gorney

But other work indicates that, in addition, the B lymphocytes of lupus patients are inherently deranged …

—Moncef Zouali

Synonyms of deranged

• psychotic
• insane
• mad
• maniacal
• crazy

Examples of deranged in a Sentence

a deranged prisoner who had been in that rat-infested hole for 20 years

Recent Examples on the Web

But the Democrats had inserted two other candidates even more deranged than Golden, so Poliquin didn’t quite get a majority. —Howie Carr, Boston Herald, 7 Nov. 2025

Playing Emily again feels like slipping into a deranged pair of old slippers. —Clayton Davis, Variety, 31 Oct. 2025

The culprit here is a sequence where a deranged surgeon (Pierre Brasseur) attempts to graft a new face onto his daughter’s disfigured one, a scene that — while mild by today’s standards — horrified audiences in 1960. —Katie Rife, Entertainment Weekly, 30 Oct. 2025

The villains are utterly sincere and deranged, vicious and human. —Brian Truitt, USA Today, 22 Oct. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1743, in the meaning defined at sense 1