like mad
13
8.1
- idiom
- Informal
:
como loco
- I'm looking forward like mad to seeing this extravaganza.
- run like mad
- fight like mad
- work like mad
My heart would be like mad before they came to me at Sky.
- My heart would be like mad before they came to me at Sky.
- Bloody bright, you know, like it's bright, like mad bright.
- So some people in my shoes would have gambled like mad.
- And then last year, when COVID started and the luxury brands raised their prices like mad, I panicked.
- Small hard tears dance like mad on the hot black stove, the way the rain must dance on the House.
- And I went, this was like mad gone wild.
- Yeah, I would say like mad candles or something.
- So for the Cheshire Cat, he's like mad sneaky, mischievous, he's a trickster.
- I go yo Theo like that like like mad deep voice as well to let him know that like yo-yo Theo.
Examples
-
Silent Bob peddles like mad, racing toward the golf cart.
Fiction book (2001) -
Liu is eating an apple and reading like mad by candlelight.
Fiction book (1993) -
I tried like mad to block that trade.
-
We were yelling like mad.
-
The twins, they were running around like mad and throwing flowers.
-
The funny thing is today the fire alarms were going off like mad in my building.
-
I've missed you like mad.
-
His head felt as if it would burst, and his heart pounded like mad.
Fiction book (1996) -
I'm gonna be working like mad, you know, and it means a lot of late nights and, uh, deadlines and, uh, migraines, and, um...
-
I tried like mad to block that trade.
Synonyms
86
7.8
With a lot of energy and very quickly
75
7.9
Happening very quickly, with great effort or very strongly
23
6.7
Very strongly and with a lot of energy
6
8.1
Very quickly and with great success
4
4.7
Very quickly and with great force
1
9.2
To do something very quickly or with great effort
1
7.6
Act with very strong, urgent energy and full focus
Acts very quickly and with great force
Doing something suddenly and forcefully without thinking because you are very eager
Antonyms
How Intense
Surface Forms
Morphology
like + mad
The phrase combines 'like' (as) with 'mad' (crazy), so a B1 learner who knows the words can plausibly infer 'as if crazy' → doing something extremely or frantically, which maps onto the MWE meaning. However, this is a conventionalized, metaphorical intensifier rather than a strictly compositional sense, so the exact range (speed, effort, intensity) is not fully predictable without exposure.
Etymology
Like mad comes from a clear image: someone acting as if they were mad—wild and out of control—so they run or work with a lot of energy. That is why today like mad means doing something 'very quickly' or 'with great energy'.