Entry Word: insanity

Function: noun

Meaning: 1 a serious mental disorder that prevents one from living a safe and normal life <his insanity requires that he spend the rest of his life in a mental hospital>

Synonyms aberration, dementia, derangement, lunacy, madness, mania

Related Words irrationality, unreasonableness; delirium, frenzy, hysteria; neurosis, psychosis, schizophrenia; delusion, hallucination, obsession, phobia; abnormality, unsoundness

Near Antonyms lucidity, rationality, reasonableness; normality, soundness

Antonyms mind, saneness, sanity

2 a foolish act or idea <everyone laughed at the latest insanity from the town eccentric> — see folly 1
3 lack of good sense or judgment <had the insanity to think that taking over a government building in protest of our foreign policy was a good idea> — see foolishness 1