Word of the Day:
insanity
What It Means
The state of being insane; madness.
The defendant pleaded insanity in the hope of getting a reduced sentence.
Insanity in Context
“But the bed-side of Lady Marchmont had a darker lesson than the grave, the ravings of insanity revealed the fiery world of that beating and passionate heart. Ethel could only feel too fearful, too humbled, for judgment; but she wept, even while she prayed, beside her early friend.”
Did You Know?
A three-part word (root 'sane', prefix 'in-' meaning 'not', suffix '-ity', meaning 'the state of'). Derived from Latin precursory equivalents. Two possible candidates for construction order: * insane + -ity: īnsānus (“unhealthy; insane”) + -itās *: Latin īnsānus (“unsound in mind; mad, insane”), from in- + sānus (“sound, sane”). Modern forms of roots: in- + sane * in- + sanity: in- (“lacking; without”) + sānitās (“health; sanity”) *: Latin sānitās (“sound in mind; sane”), from sānus + -itās. Modern forms of roots: sane + -ity
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: insanity (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the word and reformatted its meaning, examples and origin.
Cite this entry: “insanity.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/insanity. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.