different between frantic vs perfervid

English

Alternative forms

• frantick (obsolete)
• phrantic (chiefly obsolete)
• phrantick (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English frantik, frentik, from Old French frenetique, from Late Latin phreneticus, alteration of phreniticus, from ?????????? (phrenitikós, “mad, suffering from inflammation of the brain”), from ???????? (phrenîtis, “inflammation of the brain”), from ???? (phr?n, “the brain”). Doublet of frenetic.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?f?ænt?k/
• Rhymes: -ænt?k

Adjective

frantic (comparative more frantic, superlative most frantic)

1. (archaic) Insane, mentally unstable.
   • 1526, William Tyndale, trans. Bible, Matthew XV:

     Master have mercy on my sonne, for he is franticke: and ys sore vexed.

   • c. 1599, William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act I, Scene 3,^[1]

     If with myself I hold intelligence,

     Or have acquaintance with mine own desires;

     If that I do not dream, or be not frantic—

     As I do trust I am not—then, dear uncle,

     Never so much as in a thought unborn

     Did I offend your Highness.

2. In a state of panic, worry, frenzy or rush.

3. Extremely energetic

Synonyms

• frenetic, frenzied

Related terms

• frenetic
• phrenitis
• frenzy

Translations

Noun

frantic (plural frantics)

1. (archaic) A person who is insane or mentally unstable, madman.
   • 1595, George Peele, The Old Wives’ Tale, The Malone Society Reprints, 1908, lines 3-5,^[3]

     How nowe fellowe Franticke, what all a mort? Doth this sadnes become thy madnes?

   • 1657, Aston Cockayne, The Obstinate Lady, London: Isaac Pridmore, Act V, Scene 3, p. 56,^[4]

     […] who but sensless Franticks would have thoughts so poor? My Reason forsakes the government of this weak Frame, and I am fall’n into disorder […]

   • 1721, Cotton Mather, diary entry for 16 July, 1721 in Diary of Cotton Mather, 1709-1724, Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, Seventh Series, Volume VIII, Boston: 1912, p. 632,^[5]

     The Destroyer, being enraged at the Proposal of any Thing, that may rescue the Lives of our poor People from him, has taken a strange Possession of the People on this Occasion. They rave, they rail, they blaspheme; they talk not only like Ideots but also like Franticks, […]

References

Further reading

• frantic in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• frantic in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• frantic at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• infarct, infract

English

Etymology

From Late Latin perfervidus, from Latin per- + fervidus. Surface analysis per- +? fervid; compare pellucid.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /p???f??v?d/

Adjective

perfervid (comparative more perfervid, superlative most perfervid)

1. Extremely, excessively, or feverishly passionate; zealous.
   • 1939, Philip George Chadwick, The Death Guard, page 58:

     Manders — perfervid — 'hell'-ing excitedly (was there no one left on earth to convert but me?), quoting over a century from Marx and Nietzsche to Lenin, Lloyd George, and Eden, and on to Vessant and Mundaine and himself...

   • 1974, Lawrence Durrell, Monsieur, Faber & Faber 1992, p. 177:

     In this case he saw himself sitting beside the breathing slender figure of Pia like someone in an old engraving – a beastly old Rembrandt exhaling the perfervid gloom of Protestantism and a diet of turnips.

   • 1989, Nick Cave, And the Ass Saw the Angel:

     Ah threw mahself down the porch steps and fell to mah knees in the middle of the yard, wringing mah hands and beating at the sky and wailing and reeling in the red dust and petitioning the almighty with perfervid prayer.

   • 2002, Joseph O'Conner, Star of the Sea, Vintage 2003, p. 6:

     A clown, Grantley Dixon, a perfervid parrot, with his militant slogans and second-hand attitudes: like all coffee-house radicals a screaming snob at heart.

Synonyms

• fervid, eager, ardent, enthusiastic

Related terms

• fervid, pellucid

References

• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “perfervid”, in Online Etymology Dictionary