DELIRIUM • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Delirium

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/dɪlˈɪriəm/ Listen

noun

Delirium n.

(Med.) A state in which the thoughts, expressions, and actions are wild, irregular, and incoherent; mental aberration; a roving or wandering of the mind, usually dependent on a fever or some other disease, and so distinguished from mania, or madness.

Strong excitement; wild enthusiasm; madness. "The popular delirium (of the French Revolution) at first caught his enthusiastic mind." "The delirium of the preceding session (of Parliament)."

Delirium tremens. (Med.), a violent delirium induced by the excessive and prolonged use of intoxicating liquors.

Traumatic delirium (Med.), a variety of delirium following injury.

Synonyms: Insanity; frenzy; madness; derangement; aberration; mania; lunacy; fury. See Insanity.

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Etymology of 'Delirium'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Delirium" Quotes from Famous Books

... better," replied the hunter, whose delirium had somewhat left him. "My arm is sore, that's all. But why have you all got your ...

— Through the Air to the North Pole - or The Wonderful Cruise of the Electric Monarch • Roy Rockwood

... "sweated"—another police term which I had often seen in the newspapers. I inferred that this third-degree sweating process was being inflicted in order to extort some kind of a confession, though what my captors wished me to confess I could not for my life imagine. As I was really in a state of delirium, with high fever, I had an insatiable thirst. The only liquids given me were hot saline solutions. Though there was good reason for administering these, I believed they were designed for no other purpose than to increase my sufferings, as part of the same inquisitorial process. ...

— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers

... himself in the night, by tying his necktie to the bars of his cell. A gaoler hearing his death-rattle, opened the door and took him down; but Bouvet, three-quarters dead, as soon as they had brought him to, was seized with convulsive tremblings, and in his delirium he spoke. ...

— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre

... that seemed an eternity, he had been tossing in a burning fever upon that disordered bed, until he verily believed himself in a place of everlasting torment. He had that strange, double sense which goes with delirium—the consciousness of his real surroundings, the tapestry and furniture of his own chamber, and yet the conviction that this was hell, and had always been hell, and that he had descended to this terrible under-world through infinite abysses of ...

— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... of madness in the presence of shells. It is what a French friend of mine called la folie des obus. It is a kind of spiritual exultation which makes them lose self-consciousness and be caught up, as it were, in the delirium of those crashing, screaming things. In the hottest quarter of an hour in Dixmude one of my friends paced about aimlessly with a dreamy look in his eyes. I am sure he had not the slightest idea where he was or what he was doing. I believe he was "outside himself," to use a good old-fashioned ...

— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs

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