"mad as a March hare" meaning in English

See mad as a March hare in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Adjective

Audio: En-au-mad as a March hare.ogg
Etymology: Possibly from the boisterous behaviour of hares in their breeding season. Head templates: {{en-adj|-}} mad as a March hare (not comparable)
  1. (simile, informal) Crazy, demented. Wikipedia link: mad as a March hare Tags: informal, not-comparable
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          "ref": "1577, Richard Stanyhurst [i.e., Richard Stanihurst], “[The Historie of Irelande […].] A Treatise Contayning a Playne and Perfect Description of Irelande, […].”, in Raphaell Holinshed, The Firste Volume of the Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande […], volume I, London: […] [Henry Bynneman] for Iohn Hunne, →OCLC, folio 14, recto, column 1:",
          "text": "[S]he was with childe in hir huſbande his abſence, or that hir louer vſed hir fondly in open preſence, as the preſumption was not onely vehement, but alſo the fact too too apparent. Hir vnfortunat huſband had not ſooner notice gyuen him vpon his returne of theſe ſorowfull newes, then his fingers began to nibble, hys teeth to grinne, hys eyes to trickle, his eares to dindle, his heade to dezell, in ſomuch as his heart being ſkeared wyth ialouſie, & his wits enſtalde through Phrenſie, he became as madde, as a marche hare.",
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          "word": "wode"
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          "word": "yampy"
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          "word": "batcrap"
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          "word": "psycho"
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          "word": "psychotic"
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        },
        {
          "source": "Thesaurus:insane",
          "word": "unbalanced"
        },
        {
          "source": "Thesaurus:insane",
          "word": "unsane"
        },
        {
          "source": "Thesaurus:insane",
          "word": "wackadoodle"
        },
        {
          "source": "Thesaurus:insane",
          "word": "weird"
        },
        {
          "source": "Thesaurus:insane",
          "word": "whackjob"
        },
        {
          "source": "Thesaurus:insane",
          "word": "whacko"
        },
        {
          "source": "Thesaurus:insane",
          "word": "whacky"
        },
        {
          "source": "Thesaurus:insane",
          "word": "wode"
        },
        {
          "source": "Thesaurus:insane",
          "tags": [
            "British"
          ],
          "word": "yampy"
        },
        {
          "source": "Thesaurus:insane",
          "tags": [
            "euphemistic"
          ],
          "word": "zany"
        },
        {
          "source": "Thesaurus:insane",
          "word": "apeshit"
        },
        {
          "source": "Thesaurus:insane",
          "word": "batcrap"
        },
        {
          "source": "Thesaurus:insane",
          "word": "batshit"
        },
        {
          "source": "Thesaurus:insane",
          "word": "bat-shit"
        },
        {
          "source": "Thesaurus:insane",
          "word": "fucked in the head"
        },
        {
          "source": "Thesaurus:insane",
          "word": "fucked up"
        },
        {
          "source": "Thesaurus:insane",
          "word": "ripshit"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "informal",
        "not-comparable"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "mad as a March hare"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-mad as a March hare.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/e/e7/En-au-mad_as_a_March_hare.ogg/En-au-mad_as_a_March_hare.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/En-au-mad_as_a_March_hare.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "mad as a March hare"
}

Download raw JSONL data for mad as a March hare meaning in English (7.2kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-05-19 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-05-01 using wiktextract (c3cc510 and 1d3fdbf). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.