delirium Hear it!

delirium Definition

de·lir·ium (di lir′ē əm)

noun pl. deliriums -·i·ums or deliria -·ia (-ə)

  1. a temporary state of extreme mental excitement, marked by restlessness, confused speech, and hallucinations: it sometimes occurs during a fever or in some forms of insanity
  2. uncontrollably wild excitement or emotion a delirium of joy

Etymology: L, madness < delirare, to rave, lit., to turn the furrow awry in plowing < de-, from + lira, a line, furrow: see list

delirium Synonyms

delirium

n.

madness, fever, hallucination, frenzy; see excitement, insanity 1. See syn. study at hysteria.

delirium Usage Examples

Converse of object

  • cause: It was a term he might use with a patient who is suffering from delirium caused by a high fever.
  • develop: Sleep disturbances and, ultimately, sleep-wake cycle reversals, can be early signs of a developing delirium.
  • include: This involved working to evidence-based pathways of care for mental health problems including delirium, dementia and depression.
  • suffer: Scientists, publishers and librarians all seem to suffer delirium when it comes to electronic publishing.
  • produce: Many remarkable instances occurred of people being attacked with the disease during a delirium thus produced, and from which the head never cleared.
  • call: Writing, deals with alienation provided by language; or what may be called the endless delirium of language.

Adjective modifier

  • excited: Produces a state of excited delirium - extreme highs and lows.
  • alcoholic: J. Russell Reynolds, Royal Physician, found treatment of alcoholic delirium with cannabis to be " very uncertain, but occasionally useful " .
  • violent: These lead to fits which in turn become delirium tremens or DTs - violent delirium with hallucinations.
  • little: Some of the members were quite keen on a little delirium.
  • such: According to the Harrogate Advertiser a storming rendition of Riverdance caused such delirium that the audience would not stop clapping.

Modifies a noun

  • tremens: He died of delirium tremens on 15th December 1848 at Looe Street, St Andrew, Plymouth, Devon.
  • tremor: I was just 20 years old and having delirium tremors; it was just awful.

Noun used with modifier

  • cue: Cue delirium from the City fans and an agitated inquest among the Ciren players.

Possessives

  • mathematician: Raymond Queneau: " An imagination which joins the mathematicians ' delirium to the poets ' logic.

Preposition: in

  • patient: References: Massie MJ, Holland J, Glass E: Delirium in terminally ill cancer patients.
  • person: Weinrich S, Sarna L: Delirium in the older person with cancer.

Preposition: of

  • fever: It is said that the first idea of the Prisons came to Piranesi in the delirium of fever.
  • joy: What rapture glad Would fill the soul, what blest delirium Of joy, could she burst through the veil that hides her doom!
delirium Quotes

   After supper Pap took the jug, and said he had enough whisky there for two drunks and one delirium tremens.

—Twain, Mark pseudonym of  Samuel Langhorne Clemens

Young souls, in such pleasant delirium as hers, are as unsympathetic as butterflies sipping nectar.

—Eliot, George pseudonym of  MaryAnn Evans

  What are we learning Frenchor thepianofor,Iwould like to know, if it is not to be sold to a man some day† We have to cringe, and manoeuvre, and grimace for a husbandöa husband who may be deaf orhavea hump if he is richöa husband that may attack you in delirium tremens to-day if he makes a devout act of contrition for it to-morrow.

—O'Brien,William