Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Greek mythology Of, or pertaining to the maenad
  • adjective by extension, of a woman Excessively wild or emotional.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

maenad +‎ -ic

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Examples

  • He was lying tightly restrained on his back while some maenadic space-sprite executed a victory dance on his chest.

    Pawns and Symbols Majliss Larson 2000

  • Lynch, a torch in her hand, her hair in maenadic dishevelment, leading on a mob to set fire to a town.

    The Dust Flower Basil King 1893

  • The prim, obliterated, polite surface of life, and the broad, bawdy and orgiastic -- or maenadic -- foundations, form a spectacle to which no habit reconciles me.

    Varieties of Religious Experience, a Study in Human Nature William James 1876

  • When he and his brothers arrived at Heathrow in 1972 they were set upon by maenadic teenyboppers, who tore clumps of hair from Jermaine's scalp, robbed Michael of a shoe and almost choked him by tugging the opposite ends of his scarf.)

    Culture | guardian.co.uk 2009

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