Frantic

Definitions

A person who is insane or mentally unstable, madman.

archaic

Equivalents

Examples

“1595, George Peele, The Old Wives’ Tale, The Malone Society Reprints, 1908, lines 3-5, How nowe fellowe Franticke, what all a mort? Doth this sadnes become⟳ thy madnes?”

“[…] who but senseless Franticks would have⟳ thoughts so poor? My Reason⟳ forsakes the government of this weak Frame, and I am fall’n into disorder […]”

“1721, Cotton Mather, diary entry for 16 July, 1721 in Diary of Cotton Mather, 1709-1724, Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, Seventh Series, Volume VIII, Boston: 1912, p. 632, The Destroyer, being enraged at the Proposal of any Thing, that may rescue⟳ the Lives of our poor People from him, has taken a strange Possession of the People on this Occasion. They rave, they rail, they blaspheme; they talk⟳ not only like⟳ Ideots but also like⟳ Franticks, […]”

CEFR level