like mad

1. Like a mad person; in a furious or deranged manner; to a great or excessive degree; with great enthusiasm.

   We poked a stick into the hornets' nest and ran like mad.

   • 1567, “The .vj. Egloge”, in George Turberville, transl., The Eglogs of the Poet B. Mantuan Carmelitan‎^[1], London:

     They neuer linne to scrape our goodes / till all our wealth be gone. / Which if we chaunce to sée, / excuses then are had: / But so we sée not when ’tis done, / they will denie like mad / They neuer toke away / one iote but was their owne:

   • 1667, “The Seventh Vision of Hell Reform’d”, in Roger L’Estrange, transl., The Visions of Dom Francisco de Quevedo Villegas‎^[2], London: H. Herringman, page 258:

     The Devils fell upon the Damn’d; and the Damn’d fell upon the Devils, without knowing One from t’other: and all running helter-skelter, to and again, like Mad; for in fine, it was no other then a general Revolt.

   • 1741, [Samuel Richardson], “Letter XVII”, in Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: […] C[harles] Rivington, […]; and J. Osborn, […], →OCLC, page 118:

     There were divers Antick Figures, some with Caps and Bells, one dress’d like a Punch; several Harlequins, and other ludicrous Forms, that jump’d and ran about like mad; and seem’d as if they would have it thought, that all their Wit lay in their Heels.

   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Chapter 16”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:

     When Bildad was a chief-mate, to have his drab-coloured eye intently looking at you, made you feel completely nervous, till you could clutch something—a hammer or a marling-spike, and go to work like mad, at something or other, never mind what.

   • c. 1921 (date written), Karel Čapek, translated by Paul Selver, R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots): A Fantastic Melodrama […], Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1923, →OCLC, Act 2:

     All the universities are sending in long petitions to restrict their production. Otherwise, they say, mankind will become extinct through lack of fertility. But the R. U. R. shareholders, of course, won't hear of it. All the governments, on the other hand, are clamoring for an increase in production, to raise the standards of their armies. And all the manufacturers in the world are ordering Robots like mad.

   • 1993, Roddy Doyle, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha‎^[3], Penguin, page 210:

     I’d laughed. He’d laughed. Mine lasted the longest. During it, I thought it was going to change into a cry. But it didn’t. My eyes blinked like mad but then it was okay.

• like crazy

• damlike, malkied