crazy

From craze (“to crush”) +‎ -y, akin to being "crazed up". Compare cracked up (“suffered a mental breakdown; be insane”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈkɹeɪ.zi/
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˈkɹæɪ̯zi/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪzi

crazy (comparative crazier, superlative craziest)

1. Of unsound mind; insane; demented.

   His ideas were both frightening and crazy.

   • 1828, James Hogg, Mary Burnet:

     Those words appearing to be merely the ravings of superannuation, they were not regarded; but when no other traces of Mary could be found, old Andrew went up to consult this crazy dame once more, but he was not able to bring any such thing to her recollection.

   • 1913, Joseph C Lincoln, chapter V, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

     Of all the queer collections of humans outside of a crazy asylum, it seemed to me this sanitarium was the cup winner. […] When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose.

   • 1980 March 7, Billy Joel, “You May Be Right”, in Glass Houses‎:

     Now think of all the years you tried to
     Find someone to satisfy you
     I might be as crazy as you say
     If I'm crazy then it's true
     That it's all because of you
     And you wouldn't want me any other way

   • 2018, Ava Max, Madison Love, Tix, Cook Classics, Cirkut (lyrics and music), “Sweet but Psycho”, in Heaven & Hell‎, performed by Ava Max:

     Grab-a-cop-gun kinda crazy / She's poison but tasty / Yeah, people say "Run, don't walk, away"

2. Out of control.

   When she gets on the motorcycle she goes crazy.

3. Very excited or enthusiastic.

   He went crazy when he won.

   • 1864, R. B. Kimball, Was He Successful?:

     The girls were crazy to be introduced to him.

   • 2020 January 8, Nikhil Krishnan, “Six of the world's most thrilling road trips for 2020”, in The Daily Telegraph‎:

     The craziest, most extraordinary banger race on the planet: 10,000+ miles from Prague to Siberia.

4. In love; experiencing romantic feelings.

   Why is she so crazy about him?

5. (informal) Very unexpected; wildly surprising.

   The game had a crazy ending.

   • 2010 May 27, Judy Astley, Blowing It: a brilliantly funny, mad-cap novel guaranteed to make you laugh from bestselling author Judy Astley, Random House, →ISBN, page 287:

     […] at all, just a vast space of desert out in the saltlands of Nevada. It's serious dressing up, the maddest entertainment, craziest art, and at the end there's the burning of a huge effigy, stuffed with pyrotechnics 287.

   • 2018 August 7, “Save us from another kooky California breakup plan”, in The Los Angeles Times:

     We'd like to think such a kooky idea has no shot at getting on the ballot, like the previous attempts by the two main Calexiters — Marcus Ruiz Evans and Louis J. Marinelli — to get some sort of secession proposal on the ballot. But crazier things have happened.

6. (obsolete) Flawed or damaged; unsound, liable to break apart; ramshackle.
   • 1789, John Moore, Zeluco, Valancourt, published 2008, page 203:

     Buchanan shewed her into a room adjoining to Mr. Steele's dressing-room, and separated from it by a very crazy partition.

   • 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter III, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:

     Piles of mean and crazy houses.

   • 1816, Francis Jeffrey, “Memoirs of Madame de Larochejaquelein”, in The Edinburgh Review February 1816:

     They […] got a crazy boat to carry them to the island.

   • 1859, Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities:

     Casement windows opened, crazy doors were unbarred, and people came forth shivering—chilled, as yet, by the new sweet air.

7. (obsolete) Sickly, frail; diseased.
   • 1663, Samuel Butler, Hudibras:

     Over moist and crazy brains.

   • 1710 March 28 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “FRIDAY, March 17, 1709–1710”, in The Spectator, number 15; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, , volume I, New York, N.Y.: D Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC:

     One of great riches, but a crazy constitution.

     The spelling has been modernized.

   • c. 1793, Edward Gibbon, Memoirs, Penguin, published 1990, page 61:

     My poor aunt has often told me […] how long she herself was apprehensive lest my crazy frame, which is now of common shape, should remain for ever crooked and deformed.

• See Thesaurus:insane

crazy (comparative more crazy, superlative most crazy)

1. (slang) Very, extremely.

   That trick was crazy good.

   • 2002, Gina Riley, Jane Turner, That's Unusual: Scripts from Kath and Kim, Series 2, page 67:

     I'm flat out. It's crazy stupid here, Kim.

crazy (countable and uncountable, plural crazies)

1. (slang, countable) An insane or eccentric person; a crackpot.
   • 2011 Allen Gregory, "Pilot" (season 1, episode 1):

     Allen Gregory DeLongpre: Now drink up, you knuckleheads! Have a blast! It's our night, you crazies! Chloe, where are you?

2. (slang, uncountable) Eccentric behaviour; lunacy; craziness.
   • 2013, Douglas Schwartz, Checkered Scissors, page 211:

     Then again, her whole evening was full of crazy, and she didn't know what else to do.

• (insane or eccentric person): lunatic, mad man, nut ball, nut case, nutso, psychopath

• crazy on Wikipedia.Wikipedia