demented

English

Etymology

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *de

Proto-Indo-European *-h₁

Proto-Indo-European *déh₁

Proto-Italic *dē

Latin dē

Latin dē-

Proto-Indo-European *men-

Proto-Indo-European *-tis

Proto-Indo-European *méntis

Proto-Italic *mentis

Latin mēns

Latin dēmēns

Proto-Indo-European *-h₂

Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂

Proto-Indo-European *-yéti

Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti

Proto-Indo-European *-h₂tiinflu.

Proto-Italic *-ājō

Proto-Italic *-āō

Latin -ō

Vulgar Latin dēmentōder.

English dement

Old English -ed

▲

Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂

Proto-Indo-European *-tós

Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂tos

Proto-Germanic *-ōdaz

Old English -od

Middle English -ed

English -ed

English demented

Past participle of dement +‎ -ed, from Latin dēmentāre.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dɪˈmɛntɪd/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Adjective

demented (comparative more demented, superlative most demented)

2. Insane; mentally ill.
   • 2012 August 5, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “I Love Lisa” (season 4, episode 15; originally aired 02/11/1993)”, in AV Club‎^[1], archived from the original on 28 December 2012:

     So while Ralph generally seems to inhabit a different, more glorious and joyful universe than everyone else here his yearning and heartbreak are eminently relateable. Ralph sometimes appears to be a magically demented sprite who has assumed the form of a boy, but he’s never been more poignantly, nakedly, movingly human than he is here.

   • 2026 March 16, Peter Baker, “In Choosing ‘Epic Fury,’ Trump Names a War and Defines His Presidency”, in The New York Times‎^[2], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC:

     In the past week, he [Donald Trump] attacked the “truly sick and demented people” in the news media, […] , not even counting the “deranged scumbags” in Iran.

     (Can we archive this URL?)

4. Having dementia.
6. (informal) Crazy; ridiculous.

   a demented idea

   • c. 1990, How to Play Super C (PDF) (instruction manual), Konami, page 4:

     One of these new recruits is Jagger Froid, a demented alien from the Black Hole Galaxy, who dishes out punishment with a laser-sharp tongue.

   • 2025 June 3, Mark O’Connell, “‘The Mozart of the attention economy’: why MrBeast is the world’s biggest YouTube star”, in The Guardian‎^[3], archived from the original on 7 June 2025:

     Literally nothing happens, apart from Donaldson counting to 100,000. In this sense, it is nothing like his later videos, defined as they are by a near-demented commitment to maximum viewer-stimulation.

Derived terms

• academented
• dementedly
• dementedness
• nondemented
• pseudodemented
• semidemented
• undemented

Translations

insane or mentally ill

• Arabic: مَخْبُول (maḵbūl), مَجْنُون (ar) (majnūn), مَسْعُور (ar) (masʕūr)
• Bulgarian: луд (bg) (lud), побъркан (bg) (pobărkan)
• Danish: afsindig, vanvittig
• Finnish: hullu (fi)
• French: dément (fr)
• German: wahnsinnig (de), verrückt (de)
• Greek: παράφρων (el) (paráfron), τρελός (el) (trelós)
• Italian: demente (it)
• Latin: dēmens, dēmentātus
• Māori: wairangi
• Russian: сумасше́дший (ru) (sumasšédšij)
• Spanish: demencial, demente (es)
• Vietnamese: loạn trí (vi)

suffering from dementia

• Bulgarian: дементен (dementen)
• Czech: dementní (cs)
• Danish: dement
• Finnish: dementoitunut (fi)
• German: dement (de)
• Greek: ανοϊκός (el) (anoïkós)
• Hebrew: דמנטי (deménti)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: dement

  Nynorsk: dement

• Russian: слабоумный (ru) (slaboumnyj)
• Spanish: demente (es), demenciado
• Swedish: dement (sv)

Verb

demented

1. simple past and past participle of dement

See also

• mentally ill