ˈmad-ˈdoctor
[f. mad a. used subst.]
A physician who specializes in disorders of the mind; a psychiatrist.
| 1703 Farquhar Inconstant iv. iv, No mad-doctor in Christendom could have done it more effectually. 1818 Cobbett Pol. Reg. XXXIII. 363 His father was a mad⁓doctor. 1852 Dickens & Wills Curious Dance round Curious Tree in Househ. Words 17 Jan. 385/1 Nothing was too wildly extravagant, nothing too monstrously cruel, to be prescribed by mad-doctors. 1877 J. M. Granville Care & Cure of Insane I. 2 It must never be forgotten that the so-called ‘mad doctors’ have been the first to press this truth on the profession. 1881 W. S. Gilbert Foggerty's Fairy 111, Clearheaded, logical men of sense, these mad-doctors. 1890 (title) Mad doctors by one of them, being a defence of asylum physicians. 1972 C. Achebe Girls at War 9 That humble practitioner who did the miracle became overnight the most celebrated mad-doctor of his generation. |