craze

English[edit]

From Middle English crasen (“to crush, break, break to pieces, shatter, craze”), from Old Norse *krasa (“to shatter”). Cognate with Danish krase (“to crack, crackle”), Swedish krasa (“to crack, crackle”), Norwegian krasa (“to shatter, crush”), Icelandic krasa (“to crackle”).

craze (plural crazes)

Craziness; insanity.
A strong habitual desire or fancy; a crotchet.
A temporary passion or infatuation, as for same new amusement, pursuit, or fashion; as, the bric-a-brac craze; the aesthetic craze.

temporary passion

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

To weaken; to impair; to render decrepit.
- Milton
  
  Till length of years, / And sedentary numbness, craze my limbs.
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.
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.
(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.
(transitive, intransitive) To crack, as the glazing of porcelain or pottery.

to weaken; to impair; to render decrepit

to derange the intellect of; to render insane

to be crazed, or to act or appear as one that is crazed; to rave; to become insane

to break into pieces; to crush; to grind to powder — see crase

to crack, as the glazing of porcelain or pottery