maenad

From Latin maenas (“bacchant”), from Ancient Greek μαινάς (mainás, “raving, frantic”), from Ancient Greek μαίνεσθαι (maínesthai, “be furious”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈmiː.næd/

maenad (plural maenads or maenades)

Furious maenad

1. (Greek mythology) A female follower of Dionysus, associated with intense reveling.
   • 1919, W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence, chapter 30

     Blanche Stroeve was in the cruel grip of appetite. Perhaps she hated Strickland still, but she hungered for him, and everything that had made up her life till then became of no account. She ceased to be a woman, complex, kind and petulant, considerate and thoughtless; she was a Maenad. She was desire.

2. An excessively wild or emotional woman.

• maenadic
• maenadism

• anadem