madhouse Now rhetorical or derisive.
(ˈmædhaʊs)
[f. mad a. (used subst.) + house n.]
a. A house set apart for the reception and detention of the insane; a lunatic asylum.
| 1687 Luttrell Brief Rel. (1857) I. 407 He was severely reprimanded, and told he was fitter for a mad house. 1695 Par. Reg., S. James, Clerkenwell (Harl. Soc. V. 171) Burials... Ann Pallmer, widow, from Dr. Newton's Mad house. 1774 Act 14 Geo. III, c. 49 (title), An Act for regulating Madhouses. 1828 Carlyle Misc. (1857) I. 234 Tasso pines in the cell of a madhouse. 1833 Marryat P. Simple lxiv, I was a prisoner in a madhouse. 1901 Scotsman 29 Nov. 5/4 The American Eagle screams like a madhouse. 1916 G. B. Shaw Androcles & Lion Pref. p. lxiii, One person in every five dies in a workhouse, a public hospital, or a madhouse. 1922 Joyce Ulysses 358 The nobleman with the foreign name..had to have her put into a mad⁓house, cruel only to be kind. 1929 F. N. Hart Hide in Dark v. 182 It seems fairly essential to get at what facts are available..if some of us aren't to wind up in a mad⁓house. 1955 G. Willans Fasten your Lapstraps! i. 23 There is a dull sound of barley sugar being crunched and gum chewed—the whole place..is like a Victorian mad⁓house. 1971 J. Namier Lewis Namier xiii. 234 To L insanity was man's ultimate degradation; a madhouse, however well appointed, was hell. |
b. fig. A scene of uproar or confusion bewildering to the onlooker.
| 1919 G. B. Shaw Heartbreak Ho. iii. 95 Is this England, or is it a madhouse? 1929 H. Crane Let. 7 Feb. (1965) 335 This City [sc. Paris], as you know, is the most interesting madhouse in the world. 1946 E. O'Neill Iceman Cometh (1947) iii. 160 God, I'm glad I'm leaving this madhouse! 1956 R. Braddon Nancy Wake xiv. 155 The Moulins railway junction was a mad-house of torn and tangled lines and shattered rolling stock. 1973 Radio Times 26 Apr. 48/1 They [sc. chefs] roast and stew and bake in a kind of madhouse of shouted commands, cancelled orders and frayed tempers. |