List of 426 Sets of Synonyms - How they Differ - Total of 2307 Words - 207

SYNONYMS: insanity, lunacy, madness, mania, dementia.
These nouns denote conditions of serious mental disability.

Insanity is a grave, often prolonged condition of mental disorder that prevents a person from being held legally responsible for his or her actions: was judged not guilty for reasons of insanity.
Lunacy often denotes derangement relieved intermittently by periods of clear-mindedness: tried to jump out of the fortieth-floor window in a moment of utter lunacy.
Madness, a more general term, often stresses the violent aspect of mental illness: delusions that progressed to a form of madness.
Mania refers principally to the excited phase of manic-depressive psychosis: prescribed drugs to control the patient's periods of mania.
Dementia implies mental deterioration brought on by organic brain disorder: underwent progressive stages of dementia.