Frantic

a. and sb. Forms: α. 4–5 frentik(e, -tyk(e, 6 phrentique, 6–7 fren-, phrenti(c)k(e. β. 4–6 frantyk(e, 6–8 franti(c)k(e, 6 frantycke, -tique, (6 phrantic), 7– frantic. [ME. frentik, frantik, a. OF. frenetique (mod.F. frénétique), ad. late L. phrenēticus delirious (see PHRENETIC), a corruption of Gr. φρενιτικός affected with φρενῖτις delirium: see FRENZY.]

  A.  adj.

  1.  Affected with mental disease, lunatic, insane; in later use, violently or raginly mad. Now rare.

  α.  1362.  Langl., P. Pl., A. XI. 5.

1401.  Political Poems (Rolls), II. 85.

1467.  J. Paston, in Paston Lett., No. 569, II. 299. As for John Appylby, he is half frentyk.

1586.  Bright, Melanch., xi. 52. I my selfe haue obserued … in phrenticke persons, the strength doubled vpon them.

1644.  Digby, Nat. Bodies (1645), I. 413. I have seene some frenticke persons, that if they be perswaded they are tyed, and cannot stirre from the place where they are; they will lye still, and make great complaints for their imprisonment.

  β.  1398.  Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., V. xxiii. (1495), 132. Also by … acorde of musyk seke men and frantyk come ofte to theyr wytte ayen and helthe of body.

c. 1420.  Chron. Vilod., 587. Frantyke men hadden þere hurre wytte.

1542.  Boorde, Dyetary, xxxvii. (1870), 298. Euery man the whiche is madde, or lunatycke, or frantycke, or demonyacke, to be kepte in saue garde in some close howse or chamber, where there is lytell lyght.

1664.  H. More, Myst. Iniq., Apol. 562. It makes you look like a Company of Frantick men or Dæmoniacks.

1852.  Mrs. Jameson, Leg. Monast. Ord., 240. His father, believing him frantic, shut him [St. Francis of Assisi] up and bound him in his chamber.

  absol.  1787.  Cowper, Lett., 24 Dec. Were all the frantic who have been restored to their reason to make a reasonable use of it, they would acknowledge that God, and not man, had cured them.

  2.  transf. Affected by wild and ungovernable excitement; ‘mad’ with rage, pain, grief, etc. † Also, in early use, applied as a term of reproach imputing extreme folly (cf. the variation in the shades of the lit. sense 1).

c. 1477.  Caxton, Jason, 56 b. He was so angry that he semed better frantyk or out of his witte thenne other wise.

a. 1547.  Surrey, Æneid, II. 410 And thus as phrentik to our gates he ran.]

1561.  T. Norton, Calvin’s Inst., I. xiii. (1634), 56. There be risen up certaine phrenticke men as Servetto and other like.

1697.  Dryden, Virg. Georg., III. 419.

1732.  Law, Serious C., v. (ed. 2), 73. That they must be grave and solemn at Church, but may be silly and frantick at home.

1822.  W. Irving, Braceb. Hall, xvi. 140. The fair Julia, pale, bleeding, and apparently lifeless, supported in the arms of her frantic lover.

a. 1839.  Praed, Poems (1864), II. 204, ‘The Talented Man.’

1881.  Rita, My Lady Coquette, xii. His aunt and cousin are frantic with fear.

  fig.  1602.  Marston, Ant. & Mel., I. Wks. 1856, I. 17.

1798.  Frere, in Anti-Jacobin, vii. 24.

1870.  Bryant, Iliad, I. V. 176.

  3.  † a. Of a disease: Attended by frenzy or delirium (obs.). b. Pertaining to, characterized by, or displaying frenzy; delirious, wild; † insanely foolish.

  α.  1565.  Calfhill, Answ. Treat. Crosse, 32 b. Ye shal see it proued in plain words, a frentike part to worship Images.

1576.  A. Fleming, A Panoplie of Epistles, 267. It is more grieuous then y³ phrentique sicknesse of madnesse.

1594.  Hooker, Eccl. Pol., III. viii. 144. Esteeming in the phrentique error of their mindes, the greatest madnesse in the world to be wisedome, and the highest wisdom foolishnes.

  β.  a. 1533.  Frith, Disput. Purgat., Prol. (1829), 93. The ignorant people, by their seduction, was fallen into that frantic imagination, that they more feared the Pope and his decrees, which are but vanity, than God himself and his law, which are most righteous and eternal.

1586.  T. B., La Primaud. Fr. Acad., I. 666. There are (as I take it) two causes intermingled, which breede this franticke feaver of our France, the one proceeding from the estate, the other from religion.

1589.  Cogan, Haven Health, ccxliii. 264. Strange Agewes arise, raging continuall, burning, phrantike, when the small Pocks, and Measels are rife.

1632.  Lithgow, Trav., IV. 150. For in a franticke piety they cause a Smith to pull forth their eys.

1781.  Gibbon, Decl. & F., III. xlviii. 47. She displayed a frantic and impotent rage.

1790.  Burke, Fr. Rev., Wks. V. 142. The royal captives who followed in the train were slowly moved along, amidst the horrid yells, and shrilling screams, and frantick dances, and infamous contumelies, and all the unutterable abominations of the furies of hell, in the abused shape of the vilest of women.

1814.  Southey, Roderick, I. 81.

1879.  Dixon, Windsor, II. xii. 129. His welcome by the citizens was frantic.

  † 4.  quasi-adv. Frantically. Obs. rare.

c. 1600.  Shaks., Sonnet cxlvii.

a. 1652.  Brome, Queene’s Exch., III. i. Wks. 1873, III. 497.

  5.  Comb., as † frantic-headed, † -like adjs.

1558.  Phaer, Æneid, IV. 647.

1640.  Bp. Hall, Episc., II. xix. 189. Ærius saith he was a man frantick-headed, proud-minded; an Arrian altogether.

  † B.  sb. One who is frantic or frenzied; a lunatic, a delirious patient. Obs.

  α.  c. 1380.  Wyclif, Serm., x. Sel. Wks. I. 26. Resoun shulde teche hem þat þet ben worse þan frentikes.

1565.  Jewel, Repl. Harding (1611), 106. Persons Excommunicate, Infants, Phrentickes, and Mad Men.

1616.  B. Jonson, Devil an Ass, IV. vi.

1695.  Woodward, Nat. Hist. Earth, II. 88. The World was little better than a common Fold of Phreneticks and Bedlams.

  β.  1574.  J. Jones, Nat. Beginning Grow. Things, 34. Idiots, Dolts, Lunatikes, Frantikes, and blockheads.

1611.  Speed, Hist. Gt. Brit., IX. xxiii. § 99. His answers were so simple, that he was esteemed as a frantick, and sent to the Marshal-See for a Lunaticke foole.

1669.  Penn, No Cross, Wks. 1782, II. 96. By being slighted of them for a ninny, a fool, a frantick, &c. thou art delivered from a greater temptation, and that is, the power and influence of their vain conversation.

1758.  Jortin, Erasm., I. 192. It appears by his account of the combustions raised by these Frantics, that much mischief was done to learning, and would in the consequence be the ruin of the university, unless timely prevented.

  Hence † Frantic v. intr., to move frantically.

1635.  Quarles, Embl., V. iv. (1818), 270.