Rage
Pronunciation
- IPA: /ɹeɪdʒ/
- Rhymes: -eɪdʒ
Origin
Old French raige, rage (French: rage), from Medieval Latin rabia, from Latin rabies ("anger fury").
Full definition of rage
Noun
rage
(plural rages)- Violent uncontrolled anger.
- 1879, Richard Jefferies, The Amateur Poacher Chapter 1, They burned the old gun that used to stand in the dark corner up in the garret, close to the stuffed fox that always grinned so fiercely. Perhaps the reason why he seemed in such a ghastly rage was that he did not come by his death fairly. Otherwise his pelt would not have been so perfect.
- A current fashion or fad.Miniskirts were all the rage back then.
- (obsolete) Any vehement passion.
- Francis Bacon (1561-1626)in great rage of pain
- Thomas Macaulay (1800-1859)He appeased the rage of hunger with some scraps of broken meat.
- Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)convulsed with a rage of grief
Verb
- (intransitive) To act or speak in heightened anger.
- (intransitive) To move with great violence, as a storm etc.
- John Milton (1608-1674)The madding wheels
Of brazen chariots raged; dire was the noise. - 1892, James Yoxall, The Lonely Pyramid Chapter 5, The desert storm was riding in its strength; the travellers lay beneath the mastery of the fell simoom....Roaring, leaping, pouncing, the tempest raged about the wanderers, drowning and blotting out their forms with sandy spume.
- 1922, Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room Chapter 1"The two women murmured over the spirit-lamp, plotting the eternal conspiracy of hush and clean bottles while the wind raged and gave a sudden wrench at the cheap fastenings.
- 2012 October 31, David M. Halbfinger, "http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/nyregion/new-jersey-continues-to-cope-with-hurricane-sandy.html?hp," New York Times (retrieved 31 October 2012)Though the storm raged up the East Coast, it has become increasingly apparent that New Jersey took the brunt of it.
- (obsolete) To enrage.