berserk
Other forms: berserks
Berserk is another way of saying deranged, destructively violent, or unrestrained — like a wailing toddler ravaging the playroom when he's hopped up on sugar and long overdue for a nap.
Famous writer and runner George Sheehan said, “If you want to win anything – a race, your self, your life – you have to go a little berserk.” He must have been thinking of the fierce Norse warriors called berserkrs that inspired the adjective we know to mean "crazed." Those warriors were feared to be fighters of superhuman strength who wore bear skins and chewed madly at their iron shields. It's safe to say most of their opponents ran away crying.
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frenzied as if possessed by a demon
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one of the ancient Norse warriors legendary for working themselves into a frenzy before a battle and fighting with reckless savagery and insane furysynonyms: berserker
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Vocabulary lists containing berserk
Even if we don't know much Greek or Latin, we know that much of the English we speak is derived from those two languages. English has common words with roots in many different languages, though, and one of the most interesting is Old Norse, which dates from the 8th Century. Old Norse speakers colonized England centuries ago and these 10 words, and many more, are part of their legacy to modern-day speakers of English.
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