mania
Other forms: manias
Mania is an extreme interest, desire, or craze. If you dye your dog's fur to match the colors of your favorite football team, you might be suffering from sportsmania.
Mania has for centuries been associated with “madness” or “mental derangement.” It's still used in the mental health fields to mean the excitable, overactive phase of bipolar disorder or, as a suffix, to describe a compulsion, such as kleptomania (to steal) or pyromania (to set fires). More generally, it might be used as a suffix to describe enthusiasm, as in Beatlemania (The Beatles) or Pottermania (Harry Potter).
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an irrational but irresistible motive for a belief or action
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types:
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agromania
an intense desire to be alone or out in the open
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alcoholism, dipsomania, potomania
an intense persistent desire to drink alcoholic beverages to excess
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egomania
an intense and irresistible love for yourself and concern for your own needs
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kleptomania
an irresistible impulse to steal in the absence of any economic motive
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logomania, logorrhea
pathologically excessive (and often incoherent) talking
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monomania, possession
a mania restricted to one thing or idea
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necromania, necrophilia, necrophilism
an irresistible sexual attraction to dead bodies
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phaneromania
an irresistible desire to pick at superficial body parts (as in obsessive nail-biting)
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pyromania
an uncontrollable desire to set fire to things
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trichotillomania
an irresistible urge to pull out your own hair
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type of:
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irrational motive
a motivation that is inconsistent with reason or logic
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a mood disorder; an affective disorder in which the victim tends to respond excessively and sometimes violently
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synonyms:
manic disorder
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types:
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craze, delirium, frenzy, fury, hysteria
state of violent mental agitation
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nympholepsy
a frenzy of emotion; as for something unattainable
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epidemic hysertia, mass hysteria
a condition in which a large group of people exhibit the same state of violent mental agitation
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type of:
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affective disorder, emotional disorder, emotional disturbance, major affective disorder
any mental disorder not caused by detectable organic abnormalities of the brain and in which a major disturbance of emotions is predominant
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craze, delirium, frenzy, fury, hysteria
/ˈmeɪniə/
/ˈmeɪniə/
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Vocabulary lists containing mania
Learn these words derived from the Greek word mania, meaning "madness or frenzy," as well as "passion and enthusiasm."
In this classic collection of "clinical tales," neurologist Oliver Sacks explores a range of neurological conditions and phenomena.
In this memoir, acclaimed author Walter Dean Myers recounts his early life in Harlem in the 1940s and 50s.
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