craze

[kreyz] /kreɪz/
verb (used with object), crazed, crazing.
1.
to derange or impair the mind of; make insane:
He was crazed by jealousy.
2.
to make small cracks on the surface of (a ceramic glaze, paint, or the like); crackle.
3.
British Dialect. to crack.
4.
Archaic. to weaken; impair:
to craze one's health.
5.
Obsolete. to break; shatter.
verb (used without object), crazed, crazing.
6.
to become insane; go mad.
7.
to become minutely cracked, as a ceramic glaze; crackle.
8.
Metallurgy.
  1. (of a case-hardened object) to develop reticulated surface markings; worm.
  2. (of an ingot) to develop an alligator skin as a result of being teemed into an old and worn mold.
9.
Archaic. to fall to pieces; break.
noun
10.
a popular or widespread fad, fashion, etc.; mania:
the newest dance craze.
11.
insanity; an insane condition.
12.
a minute crack or pattern of cracks in the glaze of a ceramic object.
13.
Obsolete. flaw; defect.
Origin
1325-75; Middle English crasen to crush < Scandinavian; compare Swedish, Norwegian krasa to shatter, crush
Synonyms
10. vogue, mode.
Examples from the web for craze
  • The craze spawned grand notions about virtual communities alleviating society's ills.
  • About a century ago, a new craze gripped the country's health conscious: mastication.
  • The current autism pseudo-science craze is that childhood vaccines cause autism.
  • The hamburger craze started about five years ago, and now every trendy new place has to have le hamburger on the menu.
  • They did so voluntarily, even before the subprime craze.
  • As cars undergo a hybrid craze, planes need a similar innovation revolution, or else prices and pollution will continue to rise.
  • They often begin their posts mid-thought or mid-rant-in medias craze.
  • But this fleece-loving city that launched the grunge music movement and a national espresso craze is no backwater.
  • But the biggest factor driving the pangolin craze and price increase is the animal's scarcity.
  • Given the new craze, it's a pleasure to have artists who are as easy on the eye as on the ear.
British Dictionary definitions for craze

craze

/kreɪz/
noun
1.
a short-lived current fashion
2.
a wild or exaggerated enthusiasm: a craze for chestnuts
3.
mental disturbance; insanity
verb
4.
to make or become mad
5.
(ceramics, metallurgy) to develop or cause to develop a fine network of cracks
6.
(transitive) (Brit, archaic or dialect) to break
7.
(transitive) (archaic) to weaken
Word Origin
C14 (in the sense: to break, shatter): probably of Scandinavian origin; compare Swedish krasa to shatter, ultimately of imitative origin
Word Origin and History for craze
v.

mid-14c., crasen, craisen "to shatter," probably Germanic and perhaps ultimately from a Scandinavian source (e.g. Old Norse *krasa "shatter"), but entering English via an Old French form (cf. Modern French écraser). Original sense preserved in crazy quilt pattern and in reference to pottery glazing (1832). Mental sense perhaps comes via transferred sense of "be diseased or deformed" (mid-15c.), or it might be an image. Related: Crazed; crazing.

n.

late 15c., "break down in health," from craze (v.) in its Middle English sense; this led to a noun sense of "mental breakdown," and by 1813 to the extension to "mania, fad," or, as The Century Dictionary (1902) defines it, "An unreasoning or capricious liking or affectation of liking, more or less sudden and temporary, and usually shared by a number of persons, especially in society, for something particular, uncommon, peculiar, or curious ...."