- furious
- furious, frantic, frenzied, wild, frenetic, delirious, rabid are comparable when they mean possessed with uncontrollable excitement especially under the stress of a powerful emotion.Furious implies strong excitement or violence that characterizes the movements or activities of one aroused by a powerful emotion; it may be applied to the activities or to the emotion{
he was in a furious rage
}{she worked with furious zeal while the mood lasted
}{she was now entering into that stage of furious activity which represented the exalted phase of the mental circular state— Ellis
}Furious may also mean nothing more than intensely angry with or without an outward display of excitement{beneath her calm she was furious against her favorite— Bennett
}Frantic implies actions or words that indicate temporary mental disturbance under the stress of a powerful emotion (as grief, worry, anxiety, fear, or rage); it usually suggests, especially when applied to actions or behavior, a situation from which it is almost impossible to escape{his frantic efforts to free himself resulted only in his becoming worse entangled
}{there was a full moon at the time, and . . . every dog near my tent was baying it. The brutes . . . drove me frantic— Kipling
}{a frantic beating of wings— Cather
}{my father, frantic with anxiety over my safety— Heiser
}Frenzied suggests uncontrollable excitement under the sway of an emotion, often one not explicitly designated, but it differs from frantic in carrying no clear suggestion of a desperate situation{a frenzied welcome by the populace
}{why do we let these abstractions and implacable dogmatisms take possession of us . . . and fight their futile, frenzied conflicts in our persons?—/.. P. Smith
}{could hear the prosecutor's frenzied denunciations of the accused— H. W. Carter
}{ignoring the frenzied nervous attempts of an unprepared city to make some semblance of defense— Gardner
}Wild comes close to frantic in its meaning but stresses a distracted rather than a nearly deranged state of mind; it therefore may be used with reference not only to the effect of a violent emotion but to the effect produced by any undue strain on the nerves or the mind{she is wild with grief
}{wild screams of anguish
}{the news drove the people wild with joy
}{these are but wild and whirling words, my lord— Shak.
}{wild with hatred and insane with baffled desire— Thackeray
}Frenetic suggests a loss of balance, especially a tendency to be affected by extreme excitement under the stress of religious or partisan emotions{some of the more frenetic of the franc-tireurs of liberalism— Pall Mall Gazette
}{when inspired, their [the sacred writers'] individuality was intact. They were never . . . frenetic— J. P. Newman
}Delirious, like frenzied, implies uncontrollable excitement, but it more specifically suggests symptoms (as lightheadedness, incoherence, and wandering) typically associated with delirium{the children were delirious with joy over their Christmas presents
}{the end of the war was hailed with delirious excitement
}{the delirious applause of the audience— Edmund Wilson
}Rabid applies to persons or to the actions, opinions, or utterances of persons who are possessed by fixed ideas and express them with violence often to the exclusion of all others{he is very rabid on this subject
}{a rabid partisan
}{a rabid Communist
}{burning with a rabid ambition to be ranked the equal of her elders in vice— Poe
}
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
