furibund
Syllables: fu·ri·bund/ˈfjʊɹɪbʌnd/US/ˈfjʊɹɪbʌnd/
furibund adjective: having a propensity to be furious; choleric, irate.
Adjective
furibund (comparative more furibund, superlative most furibund)
- Having a propensity to be furious; choleric, irate.
- Fie, frantike, fabulators, furibund, and fatuate, / Out, oblatrant, oblict, obstacle, and obsecate.1537, Wilfride Holme, On the Fall and Evil Success of Rebellion; quoted in Geo[rge] Steevens, “Act V”, in Annotations by Sam. Johnson and Geo. Steevens, and the Various Commentators, upon Midsummer...
- Tibullus. O, terrible, windy words! / Gallus. A ſigne of a windy Braine. / Criſpinus. O—Oblatrant—Obcæcate—Furibund—Fatuate—Strenuous.— / Horace. Heer's a deale: Oblatrant, Obcæcate, Furibund, Fatuate, Strenuous. / Cæſar. Now, all's come vp, I trow. What a Tumult he had in his Belly![1601, Ben Jonson, Poetaster or The Arraignment: […], London: […] [R. Bradock] for M[atthew] L[ownes] […], published 1602, →OCLC, Act IV
- Synonyms:
- agitated, angry, annoyed, apoplectic, bad-tempered, berserk, big mad, blood-boiling, boiling mad, butthurt
- Antonyms:
- calm, steady, collected, composed, cool-headed, equable, equanimous, equanimitable, even-keeled, even-minded
Examples of furibund in a sentence
- Or burley Hero [Ajax the Great] Sev'nfold Targe who bore, / With Choler furibund, vindictive Steel / Plunging in Brutal Gore; [...]1730, Andrew Brice, Freedom: A Poem, Written in Time of Recess from the Rapacious Claws of Bailiffs, and Devouring Fangs of Goalers, […]...
- The story itself is a strange, wild, furibund thing—about Captain Ahab's vow of revenge against one Moby Dick.1853 July, “Sir Nathaniel” [pseudonym], “American Authorship. No. IV.—Herman Melville.”, in William Harrison Ainsworth, editor, The New...
- But I soon discover that she grins at everything—at the fire that she lights, at the cloth she lays for dinner, at the medicine-bottles she brings upstairs, at the furibund visage of Mrs.1863, [William] Wilkie Collins, “Fragments of Personal Experience.—I. Laid Up in Lodgings.”, in My Miscellanies. […], volume I, London...
- About 1540 the furibund character of syphilis began to disappear.1890 February, Jas[on] G. Kiernan, “Anti-syphilitics of the Sixteenth Century”, in The Medical Standard, volume VII, number 2, Chicago...
Synonyms of furibund
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Antonyms
10 more antonymsFewer antonyms
Forms of furibund
| comparative | more furibund |
|---|---|
| superlative | most furibund |
Origin of furibund
From French furibond (“furious”) and Middle English furybound, furybounde, both borrowed from Latin furibundus (“frantic, frenzied; maddened, raving; inspired”), from furō (“to rave, rage”) + -bundus (suffix forming adjectives with an active or transitive meaning). The further etymology of furō is uncertain; a derivation from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewh₂- (“smoke; haze, mist”) has been suggested.
Questions about furibund
- What does furibund mean?
- Furibund means having a propensity to be furious; choleric, irate.
- How do you use furibund in a sentence?
- Or burley Hero [Ajax the Great] Sev'nfold Targe who bore, / With Choler furibund, vindictive Steel / Plunging in Brutal Gore; [...]
- What part of speech is furibund?
- Furibund is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce furibund?
- Furibund is pronounced /ˈfjʊɹɪbʌnd/ (UK).
Words near furibund in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: furibund (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-furibund.wav.
Cite this entry: “furibund.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/furibund. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.