like mad

like mad

1. Like a mad person; in a furious or deranged manner; to a great or excessive degree; with great enthusiasm.

   We poked a stick into the hornets' nest and ran like mad.

   • 1567, George Turberville (translator), The Eglogs of the Poet B. Mantuan Carmelitan, London, “The .vj. Egloge,”

     They neuer linne to scrape our goodes

     till all our wealth be gone.

     Which if we chaunce to sée,

     excuses then are had:

     But so we sée not when ’tis done,

     they will denie like mad

     They neuer toke away

     one iote but was their owne:

   • 1667, Roger L’Estrange (translator), The Visions of Dom Francisco de Quevedo Villegas, London: H. Herringman, “The Seventh Vision of Hell Reform’d,” p. 258,

     The Devils fell upon the Damn’d; and the Damn’d fell upon the Devils, without knowing One from t’other: and all running helter-skelter, to and again, like Mad; for in fine, it was no other then a general Revolt.

   • 1741, Samuel Richardson, Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded, London: for the author, Volume 4, Letter 17, p. 118,

     There were divers Antick Figures, some with Caps and Bells, one dress’d like a Punch; several Harlequins, and other ludicrous Forms, that jump’d and ran about like mad; and seem’d as if they would have it thought, that all their Wit lay in their Heels.

   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, Chapter 16,

     When Bildad was a chief-mate, to have his drab-coloured eye intently looking at you, made you feel completely nervous, till you could clutch something—a hammer or a marling-spike, and go to work like mad, at something or other, never mind what.

   • 1993, Roddy Doyle, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, Penguin, p. 210,

     I’d laughed. He’d laughed. Mine lasted the longest. During it, I thought it was going to change into a cry. But it didn’t. My eyes blinked like mad but then it was okay.

• like crazy

• damlike, malkied