Word.ws English Dictionary

Caligulism

Caligulism noun: madness, especially when of an extravagant or sadistic nature.

Noun

Caligulism (countable and uncountable, plural Caligulisms)

  1. Madness, especially when of an extravagant or sadistic nature.
    • The laſt token of your Caliguliſm ſhall be the Sacrifices vvhich he appointed of Pheaſants and Peacocks to his Deity: & accordingly your Friend the Author of the Friendly Debate hath ſacrificed a Pheasant, and I have ſacrificed a Peacock to your Divinity; and I hope it vvill be therefore henceforth...1673, Andrew Marvel[l], The Rehearsall Transpros’d: The Second Part. […], London: […] Nathaniel Ponder […], →OCLC, page 169
    • Alas! It would be endless to tell you all his Calligulisms.1745, Horace Walpole, Letter to France

Forms of Caligulism

pluralCaligulisms

Origin of Caligulism

From Caligula + -ism. The coining of this term is often attributed to Horace Walpole, who used it to describe Frederick, Prince of Wales, in a letter written on November 29, 1745, but in fact, the use of the term predates Walpole.

Questions about Caligulism

What does Caligulism mean?
Caligulism means madness, especially when of an extravagant or sadistic nature.
What part of speech is Caligulism?
Caligulism is a noun.
What is the plural of Caligulism?
The plural of Caligulism is Caligulisms.

Words near Caligulism in the dictionary

  1. Caliguiri
  2. Caligula
  3. Caligulan
  4. Caligulean
  5. Caligulian
  6. Caligulism
  7. Caligulisms
  8. caligynephobia
  9. Caliking
  10. calimanco
  11. calimancoes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Caligulism (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “Caligulism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/caligulism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.