delirium

Borrowed from Latin dēlīrium (“derangement, madness”).

• enPR: dĭlĭʹrēəm
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /dɪˈlɪ.ɹi.əm/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /dɪˈlɪɹ.i.əm/
• Rhymes: -ɪəɹiəm

delirium (countable and uncountable, plural deliriums or deliria)

1. (medicine) A temporary mental state with a sudden onset, usually reversible, including symptoms of confusion, inability to concentrate, disorientation, anxiety, and sometimes hallucinations. Causes can include dehydration, drug intoxication, and severe infection.
   • 1824, Geoffrey Crayon [pseudonym; Washington Irving], Tales of a Traveller, (please specify |part=1 to 4), Philadelphia, Pa.: H[enry] C[harles] Carey & I[saac] Lea, […], →OCLC:

     The popular delirium [of the French Revolution] at first caught his enthusiastic mind.

   • 1826, [Mary Shelley], The Last Man. […], volume (please specify |volume=I, II, or III), London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC:

     Better to decay in absolute delirium, than to be the victim of the methodical unreason of ill-bestowed love.

   • 1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 149:

     The evening wore away, and the long grass was silvery with dew; the consequence was what might have been expected,—next day, he was laid up with a violent cold; and the fever soon ran so high, that delirium came on; and before three days were past, his life hung upon a thread.

   • 1879, John Morley, Burke:

     the delirium of the preceding session (of Parliament)

2. Wild, frenzied excitement or ecstasy.

• “delirium”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “delirium”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.

Borrowed from Latin dēlīrium.

• IPA^(key): /deːˈliː.ri.ʏm/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: de‧li‧ri‧um

delirium n (plural deliria or deliriums, diminutive deliriumpje n)

1. delirium

• delier

From dēlīrō (“to deviate from a straight track; to be crazy or deranged”) +‎ -ium (nominal suffix).

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /deːˈliː.ri.um/, [d̪eːˈlʲiːriʊ̃ˑ]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /deˈli.ri.um/, [d̪eˈliːrium]

dēlīrium n (genitive dēlīriī or dēlīrī); second declension

1. (medicine) Delirium, madness, frenzy.
   • c. 47 C.E., Aulus Cornelius Celsus, De Medicina, 2.7.28:

     […] aut quī febre aequē nōn quiēscente simul et dēlīrio et spīrandī difficultāte vexātur […]

     […] or when, likewise without the fever subsiding, he is distressed at once by delirium and difficulty in breathing […]

   Synonyms: dēlīrātiō, dēlīritās

Second-declension noun (neuter).

¹Found in older Latin (until the Augustan Age).

• “delirium”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press

From Latin dēlīrium.

delirium n (definite singular deliriet, indefinite plural delirier, definite plural deliria or deliriene)

1. a delirium

• “delirium” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

From Latin dēlīrium.

delirium n (definite singular deliriet, indefinite plural delirium, definite plural deliria)

1. a delirium

• “delirium” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Borrowed from Latin dēlīrium.

• IPA^(key): /dɛˈli.rjum/
• Rhymes: -irjum
• Syllabification: de‧li‧rium

delirium n

1. (pathology) delirium (mental state of confusion)

   Synonym: majaczenie

• delirium in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• delirium in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Borrowed from Latin dēlīrium.

delirium n

1. delirium

   Synonym: (colloquial) dille