Word Origins: Crazy

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What do Maria I of Portugal, King Charles VI of France, and Caligula of Rome all have in common besides being rulers? They were all crazy.

In this episode of Word Origins, we discuss the etymology of the word 'crazy'.

Crazy's etymological roots are somewhat unclear, but a likely origin comes from the Old French word 'acraser' itself a borrowing from Old Norse. 'Acraser,' whose modern form 'écraser' like the older form means to break, shatter, crush or crack, made its way into Middle English as acraze.

Then through a process called aphaeresis the word lost its initial 'a'. Aphaeresis simply refers to the loss of one or more sounds at the beginning of a word, especially in the case of unstressed vowels.

As an adjective, crazy meant 'having the qualities of a crack or breach' or 'full of cracks'.

Later we started using it for people who were of an unsound or cracked mind.