BEDLAM

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does Bedlam mean? 

• BEDLAM (noun)
  The noun BEDLAM has 2 senses:

1. a state of extreme confusion and disorder

2. pejorative terms for an insane asylum

  Familiarity information: BEDLAM used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BEDLAM (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A state of extreme confusion and disorder

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

bedlam; chaos; pandemonium; topsy-turvydom; topsy-turvyness

Hypernyms ("bedlam" is a kind of...):

confusion (disorder resulting from a failure to behave predictably)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "bedlam"):

balagan (a word for chaos or fiasco borrowed from modern Hebrew (where it is a loan word from Russian))

Sense 2

Meaning:

Pejorative terms for an insane asylum

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

Bedlam; booby hatch; crazy house; cuckoo's nest; funny farm; funny house; loony bin; madhouse; nut house; nuthouse; sanatorium; snake pit

Hypernyms ("Bedlam" is a kind of...):

asylum; insane asylum; institution; mental home; mental hospital; mental institution; psychiatric hospital (a hospital for mentally incompetent or unbalanced person)

 Context examples 

Cry after cry, and answering cries, were turning the silence into a bedlam.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Mad as Bedlam, boy!” said Mr. Dick, taking snuff from a round box on the table, and laughing heartily.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

They quarrelled and bickered more than ever among themselves, till at times the camp was a howling bedlam.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

He dissected beauty in his crowded little bedroom laboratory, where cooking smells alternated with the outer bedlam of the Silva tribe; and, having dissected and learned the anatomy of beauty, he was nearer being able to create beauty itself.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

It is a picture, and I can see it now,—the jagged edges of the hole in the side of the cabin, through which the grey fog swirled and eddied; the empty upholstered seats, littered with all the evidences of sudden flight, such as packages, hand satchels, umbrellas, and wraps; the stout gentleman who had been reading my essay, encased in cork and canvas, the magazine still in his hand, and asking me with monotonous insistence if I thought there was any danger; the red-faced man, stumping gallantly around on his artificial legs and buckling life-preservers on all comers; and finally, the screaming bedlam of women.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Once again he lived in the lair with Kiche, crept trembling to the knees of Grey Beaver to tender his allegiance, ran for his life before Lip-lip and all the howling bedlam of the puppy-pack.

(White Fang, by Jack London)