crazy

comparative crazier · superlative craziest

1. Of unsound mind; insane; demented.First known use 17th c.

   His ideas were both frightening and crazy.

   4 more examples

   Those words appearing to be merely the ravings of superannuation, they were not regarded; but when no other traces of Mary could be found, old Andrew went up to consult this crazy dame once more, but he was not able to bring any such thing to her recollection.

   1828, James Hogg, Mary Burnet

   Of all the queer collections of humans outside of a crazy asylum, it seemed to me this sanitarium was the cup winner. […] When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose.

   1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter V, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC

   Now think of all the years you tried to Find someone to satisfy you I might be as crazy as you say If I'm crazy then it's true That it's all because of you And you wouldn't want me any other way

   1980 March 7, Billy Joel, “You May Be Right”, in Glass Houses

   Grab-a-cop-gun kinda crazy / She's poison but tasty / Yeah, people say "Run, don't walk, away"

   2018, Ava Max, Madison Love, Tix, Cook Classics, Cirkut, “Sweet but Psycho”, in Heaven & Hell, performed by Ava Max

   Synonyms: 5150, bananas, barking, barking mad, fey, buggish, buggy, bughouse

2. Out of control.

   When she gets on the motorcycle she goes crazy.

3. Very excited or enthusiastic.

   He went crazy when he won.

   2 more examples

   The girls were crazy to be introduced to him.

   1864, R. B. Kimball, Was He Successful?

   The craziest, most extraordinary banger race on the planet: 10,000+ miles from Prague to Siberia.

   2020 January 8, Nikhil Krishnan, “Six of the world's most thrilling road trips for 2020”, in The Daily Telegraph

4. In love; experiencing romantic feelings.

   Why is she so crazy about him?

5. informalVery unexpected; wildly surprising.

   crazy work

   4 more examples

   The game had a crazy ending.

   […] at all, just a vast space of desert out in the saltlands of Nevada. It's serious dressing up, the maddest entertainment, craziest art, and at the end there's the burning of a huge effigy, stuffed with pyrotechnics 287.

   2010 May 27, Judy Astley, Blowing It: a brilliantly funny, mad-cap novel guaranteed to make you laugh from bestselling author Judy Astley, Random House, →ISBN, page 287

   We'd like to think such a kooky idea has no shot at getting on the ballot, like the previous attempts by the two main Calexiters — Marcus Ruiz Evans and Louis J. Marinelli — to get some sort of secession proposal on the ballot. But crazier things have happened.

   2018 August 7, “Save us from another kooky California breakup plan”, in The Los Angeles Times

   “It’s been a long process and I’ve come close to giving up along the way, but this is undoubtedly the craziest archaeological excavation I’ve yet been part of,” Bloch said in the news release.

   2025 May 2, Amarachi Orie, “Archaeologists discover true identity of Costa Rica shipwrecks long thought to be pirate ships”, in CNN, archived from the original on 02 Aug 2025

   Synonyms: amazing

6. obsoleteFlawed or damaged; unsound, liable to break apart; ramshackle.First known use 16th–19th c.

   Piles of mean and crazy houses.

   1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter III, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC

   3 more examples

   Buchanan shewed her into a room adjoining to Mr. Steele's dressing-room, and separated from it by a very crazy partition.

   1789, John Moore, Zeluco, Valancourt, published 2008, page 203

   They […] got a crazy boat to carry them to the island.

   1816, Francis Jeffrey, “Memoirs of Madame de Larochejaquelein”, in The Edinburgh Review February 1816

   Casement windows opened, crazy doors were unbarred, and people came forth shivering—chilled, as yet, by the new sweet air.

   1859, Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

7. obsoleteSickly, frail; diseased.First known use 16th–19th c.

   Over moist and crazy brains.

   1663, Samuel Butler, Hudibras

   2 more examples

   One of great riches, but a crazy constitution.

   1710 March 27 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “THURSDAY, March 17, 1709–1710”, in The Spectator, number 15; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume I, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC

   My poor aunt has often told me […] how long she herself was apprehensive lest my crazy frame, which is now of common shape, should remain for ever crooked and deformed.

   c. 1793, Edward Gibbon, Memoirs, Penguin, published 1990, page 61

comparative more crazy · superlative most crazy

1. slangVery, extremely.

   That trick was crazy good.

   2 more examples

   I'm crazy tired after today's shift at work.

   I'm flat out. It's crazy stupid here, Kim.

   2002, Gina Riley, Jane Turner, That's Unusual: Scripts from Kath and Kim, Series 2, page 67

plural crazies

1. countableslangAn insane or eccentric person; a crackpot.

   Now drink up, you knuckleheads! Have a blast! It's our night, you crazies! Chloe, where are you?

   2011, “Pilot”, in Allen Gregory, season 1, episode 1

   Synonyms: basket case, basket weaver, crack, crackpot, crazyhead, dingbat, eccentric, fruit and nut case

2. slanguncountableEccentric behaviour; lunacy; craziness.

   Then again, her whole evening was full of crazy, and she didn't know what else to do.

   2013, Douglas Schwartz, Checkered Scissors, page 211