brainsick, a.
(ˈbreɪnsɪk)
[f. brain n. + sick.]
1. Diseased in the brain or mind; addle-headed, mad, foolish, frantic.
| 1483 Caxton G. de la Tour xiv. 20 Nor foles that are brayne sik. 1549 Latimer Serm. bef. Edw. VI (Arb.) 84 What ye brain-sycke fooles..do ye beleue hym? 1648 Hunting of Fox 25 Some head-strong brain⁓sick Sectaries. 1733 Swift Legion Club Wks. 1755 IV. i. 206 A queer Brain⁓sick brute, they call a peer. 1848 Macaulay Hist. Eng. I. 591 This man, at once unprincipled and brainsick. |
† b. as n. Obs.
| 1606 Sylvester Du Bartas i. iv. Wks. (Grosart) 150 (D.) Some brainsicks liue there now-a-daies. |
2. Of things: Proceeding from a diseased mind.
| 1571 Golding Calvin on Ps. viii. 3 With braynsik madnesse. 1790 Cowper Odyss. iv. 616 The brainsick fury seiz'd him. 1856 R. Vaughan Mystics (1860) I. 278 The spasmodic movements of a brainsick disinterestedness. |
Hence brainsickly a. and adv., brainsickness.
| 1605 Shakes. Macb. ii. ii. 46 To thinke So braine-sickly of things. 1823 Blackw. Mag. XIII. 415, I am not so brain⁓sickly as to dwell on gloomy reverie. 1541 Paynell Catiline xxxv. 54 Wherto shuld we reherse the furious brain⁓syckenes of Cethegus? |