craze

Alternative forms

• crase, craise, craize (dialectal)

Etymology

From Middle English crasen (“to crush, break, break to pieces, shatter, craze”), from Old Norse *krasa (“to shatter”), ultimately imitative.^[1]

Cognate with Danish krase (“to crack, crackle”), Swedish krasa (“to crack, crackle”), Norwegian krasa (“to shatter, crush”), Icelandic krasa (“to crackle”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kɹeɪz/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪz

Noun

craze (plural crazes)

1. (archaic) craziness; insanity.
2. A strong habitual desire or fancy.
3. A temporary passion or infatuation, as for some new amusement, pursuit, or fashion; a fad
   • 2012, Alan Titchmarsh, The Complete Countryman: A User's Guide to Traditional Skills and Lost Crafts

     Winemaking was a huge craze in the 1970s, when affordable package holidays to the continent gave people a taste for winedrinking, but the recession made it hard to afford off-license prices back home.

4. (ceramics) A crack in the glaze or enamel caused by exposure of the pottery to great or irregular heat.

Verb

craze (third-person singular simple present crazes, present participle crazing, simple past and past participle crazed)

1. (archaic) To weaken; to impair; to render decrepit.
   • Milton

     Till length of years, / And sedentary numbness, craze my limbs.

2. To derange the intellect of; to render insane.
   • Tillotson

     any man […] that is crazed and out of his wits

   • Shakespeare

     Grief hath crazed my wits.

3. To be crazed, or to act or appear as one that is crazed; to rave; to become insane.
   • Keats

     She would weep and he would craze.

4. (transitive, intransitive, archaic) To break into pieces; to crush; to grind to powder. See crase.
   • Milton

     God, looking forth, will trouble all his host, / And craze their chariot wheels.

5. (transitive, intransitive) To crack, as the glazing of porcelain or pottery.

References

Anagrams

• Rezac